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Infiltrator Septic Leachfield systems…

| Posted in General Discussion on September 15, 2000 05:40am

*
Does anyone have any experience, pro or con, with leach field systems from a company in Old Say brook, Conneticut called Infiltrator, http://www.infiltratorsystems.com/. They manufacture plastic drainage chambers for on-site septic and storm water management. Infiltrator’s septic chambers replace conventional stone and pipe leach fields.

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  1. Guest_ | Sep 13, 2000 06:46am | #1

    *
    our system is an infiltrator. not by choice mind you . when we had to put in our leach field it was the wrong time of year, winter and rainy and we could not get rock delivered where we needed it. Howver the system has been working fine now for 4 years and it is the mian system that the excavation company puts in and say they have had not any problems

    1. Guest_ | Sep 13, 2000 08:11am | #2

      *Michael, I was interested in it & wrote for info. I thought it looked great, the less digging the better where I'm going with it. But recently it has occured to me that the shallow excavation is probably not gonna fly because of the frost line. I need to get back in touch with them & see what difference it may make. Might end up needing a trench as deep as standard septic. Another septic mystery for a city boy to figure out. Joe H

      1. Guest_ | Sep 13, 2000 02:02pm | #3

        *We install lots of fields with this product. We are only allowed to use it where there is very sandy or gravel soil because of the limited amount of area available for leaching. They work just fine and have their place. No problem with cold climate.

        1. Guest_ | Sep 13, 2000 07:38pm | #4

          *Our county Sanitarian (Wasco County in northern Oregon) says they seem to be working fine, however, they haven't been used around here all that long. In our county, they do require a 1" or so wire mesh to be laid in the trench under the Infiltrator. This is to keep the gophers from filling up the cavity under the Infiltrator. This adds a bit to the installation costs. (The steel wire will rust away after a while but by then the ground will be so crudded up that the gophers will not want to go there.)There is an alternative non-gravel system that is also allowed in our area. It uses chunks of EPS (expanded polystyrene, a soft spongy plastic foam) around perforated pipe. It looks something like somebody chopped up a foam mattress into 1" cubes, dumped them into a long mesh bag, and then shoved a 3" perforated pipe through the middle of it. This is produced by a local company (one of the few in our small town) that is working on getting national distribution, so I don't know how widely available it is. The stuff is pretty light but would be bulky to ship. Sometime when I have a day off during the week I will stop by their operation and find out the cost. There website is:http://www.ezdrain.com/ezdrain/

          1. Guest_ | Sep 14, 2000 09:02pm | #5

            *I installed a infiltrator system in my yard last year instead of the old fasioned pipe and gravel system. I think the biggest advantage is the labor savings. After the backhoe finished the 3' wide trench it took about 30 minutes to install the infiltrator - 100 feet (level!). Then the backhoe could backfill over the top of it. I think the infiltrator has other advantages too: The capacity (100' of infiltrator must hold at least 10,000 gallons of waste water), The leach area (has a lot of vents on the sides of the infiltrators).... I like it. The guy who did the backhoe work said he has been installing them for years and hasn't seen any fail.

          2. Guest_ | Sep 15, 2000 05:13am | #6

            *Casey:We have a a similar "styrofoam" aggregate septic system available in our area called E-Z-lay. I don't know exactly how they spell it so I made a guess and put it in the URL line on my browser - got a bit of a surprize!

          3. Guest_ | Sep 15, 2000 05:39am | #7

            *Indeedy, there are lots of surprises out there in Internet land. I wanted to find out the distribution of taste buds on the tongue and so used a search engine, searching on "tongue". The results came up with some rather amazing ways to use the tongue, but nothing on taste buds...

  2. Michael_Maddox | Sep 15, 2000 05:40am | #8

    *
    Does anyone have any experience, pro or con, with leach field systems from a company in Old Say brook, Conneticut called Infiltrator, http://www.infiltratorsystems.com/. They manufacture plastic drainage chambers for on-site septic and storm water management. Infiltrator's septic chambers replace conventional stone and pipe leach fields.

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