Way OT/ Frozen ground???

[torker]

I know...it's an oddball question but my septic system is still frozen...has been for nearly 2 months.
This has NOT been a fun deal.
The local experts say the whole works is frozen....the field, everything.
I obviously want to get it working asap...but.. something I've never thought of before..
Does frozen ground thaw out from the top down?
Or does the warmth from the lower, unfrozen groung help so it thaws a bit from the top and also from the bottom?
When it first froze, I was bound and determined that I'd get it thawed out. I hand dug (with the aid of tiger torches) down over 4 feet deep trying to find the tank. The ground was frozen solid to that depth and more.
I'm trying to figure out how long it will take the field to thaw. That's just way too much ground to try to thaw any other way.
Thanks for any insight!
Russ

[ptjw7uk]

I assume that very little heat will come from below or else permafrost would not exist.
You will not get much thawing of the ground until the snow has all gone as it is a good insulator which will keep the ground well below zero.
You could help the thaw by removing snow to help speed up things also black cloth laid on the ground helps speed things up, clear plastic is even faster if there is any sun at all(green house effect)
Peter

[speedsport]

Hey Torker,
This is obviously a major problem, how have you been dealing with this?, outhouse?, that don't sound like fun in the middle of the night when its colder than a ex wifes heart and the wind is coming out of the north @50mph.

[winchman]

How did the tank and field get approved for installation at that depth if it was bound to freeze up and become unusable?
Roger

[Bruce Griffing]

On the question of thawing -
In the Northeast, there is a season called mud season. I normally lasts about two weeks. It is the time when the frost is off the surface, and things have melted, but there is still frost below ground. As a result, all of the surface water has trouble escaping and everything turns to mud. During the construction of a house I owned in Upstate NY, the 1500' driveway went through a difficult couple of weeks during mud season. One sunny day, the whole thing dried up. That was the day that the subsurface frost left the ground.

[garyphansen]

A septic system should never freeze because of hot water being added to it and because the bacteria actually generate a small amount of heat. However, if your froze it could be because there is foot trafic over the area. That will "drive" the frost down. Another possiblity is that you had very cold tempatures with out snow cover. What is the normal frost depth in your area? Around here the safe depth is 2' in sand or 42" in clay. A septic system will not work in clay.

If you have been having sunny days you could speed up the thawing by staking out black plastic sheething over the area. The black plastic would absorb heat from the sun light and hold it in at night. Gary P. Hansen

[Tinkerer]

Wow sound like you have a blockage in the system somewhere. Under normal working conditions waste break down should generate enough heat that keeps things working. I feel for you... I know it's a big job to fix or as I did replace the whole system.

Here's praying for a fast warm-up

[Willy]

Bruce, that sounds exactly like what happens here every year, as a matter of fact it finally happened to most of my yard last week.

Russ,take this for what it's worth as I haven't tried it personally but it does make sense.

About twenty years ago a friend of mine had about 500 feet of water line freeze up on him during a real cold snap in March. The snow cover had already disappeared and the line was not deep enough to protect it from the frost without the snow.

So buddy was desperate as hell as he had no water. One cold day as he was trying to figure out what to do he jumped in to his pickup and thought... "gee sure is warm in here". Truck wasn't running, just exposed to open sky. He immediately seized on the idea and built a tent over the length of the line made out of survey stakes and clear poly.

Not sure, but I think he had it thawed out in about four days.

[wtrueman]

frozen ground

Here is a suggestion that is maybe waaaay off base. Drive a metal post as far in as possible close to the exit from the house. Then drive in a metal post about 10 feet further along the path the septic takes. Hook up your arc-welder to the two leads and set it to about 50 amps. Turn on for about two minutes, shut off and see if there is any visible melting going on around the posts. If so, experiment with a longer time frame and you should see melting along the line. Good luck, Wayne.

[torker]

Hmm.. Ok..this was a real screw up from the get go. This froze up last winter but I was told it was because the previous owner poured bleach down the well system to clean it and got bleach in the septic...this was confirmed by the tank cleaning guy. But now I see it was also partly due to driving over it as well. I wasn't reall worried as we poured hot water and bacteria etc down it all the time.
I was "given" the wrong info about the septic field...from a former employee of the previous owner. He claimed he knew where the system ran. He was wrong.
Anyway..it turns out that I was driving right over top of the tank, distribution box and the field ALL winter.
Yup...the ol' outhouse....rented of course. Lot colder than I remember as a kid.
Thank Gawd for the motel we run. It's about 10 minutes away so we have everything there. LOL! The wife moved there....til the thing thaws.
I like the plastic idea. Not too sure about the welder idea as the tiger torch produces a whack of heat and it takes a long time to do anything.
I'm going to try that plastic idea.
Thanks!

[mochinist]

I dont know anything about septic tanks and I live in the desert of Arizona so the frozen ground thing is beyond me, but could you maybe have a couple day bonfire over the frozen area, or does the field cover quite a bit of land?

[Mcgyver]

I assume that very little heat will come from below or else permafrost would not exist.

I'd go the opposite - that if there wasn't heat coming up from below, there wouldn't be a frost line. So far as thawing goes, I'd go with from both directions - there's an area both above and below the frozen dirt that's warmer than it.

[quasi]

Torker, eat more Jalapenos!

[Hal]

torker

Does the septic tank have a clean out? If so lift the lid and check if its frozen. Usually the tank has 4' covering of dirt. Never heard of one freezing but if the tank is frozen I'd build a fire on top of the tank.
Most the time a sewer line freeze, its on the way to a septic tank.(where a road crosses the line)
Find the line clean out and run a hose down it using hot water or find someone with a portable pressure washer/steamer. It shouldn't take to long to thaw it.

Hal

[tattoomike68]

Put a green house over the septic system and grow Killer Canadian Ganga.

party on bro..

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