Septic Tank Replacement in Chattanooga, TN
Chattanooga Drain Field Pros is a septic tank replacement contractor doing tank and baffle work, drain field replacement, drain field repair, complete system installation, mound and alternative systems, soil testing and design, and commercial septic work. We serve houses, cabins, rental property, and small business sites across Chattanooga, Soddy-Daisy, Harrison, Signal Mountain, Apison, and Hamilton County, Tennessee.
We set precast concrete tanks with an effluent filter in the outlet tee, which is the default across this county and the right answer wherever a truck can reach the hole. Where access rules that out, Infiltrator IM-series poly tanks go in by machine or by hand on lots a concrete boom cannot serve. Polylok risers, bolted lids, and outlet filters finish either one, so the tank gets serviced through a lid at grade instead of a shovel and a memory. What that filter costs is a small fraction of a field, and its whole job is keeping solids out of one.
The Lid Comes First
A corroded concrete lid is a safety problem before it is anything else. Sewer gas eats concrete from the underside, so a lid can look fine from the lawn and hold nothing. If yours is cracked, spalling, or moves underfoot, keep people and animals off that ground today.
Cracks, Infiltration, and Why It Matters
A cracked tank works in both directions. Effluent leaks out where it should not, and groundwater leaks in during a wet stretch. Infiltration is the sneaky one, because it hands your field extra gallons it was never sized to take, then does it hardest in exactly the season the ground is already saturated. A tank that fills faster than the house explains is worth opening.
Inlets, Outlets, and the Lines Around the Tank
The connections fail as often as the tank does. A house line settles and pulls at the inlet. A driveway crosses the outlet run and crushes it. Roots find the joint at the outlet tee. We check both connections while the tank is exposed, because opening the same ground twice is the expensive way to do this.
Pump Down, Remove, Set, Backfill
Tank replacement is a one day job on a clear site. The tank comes down to empty first, which is the single part of our work that involves a pump. Then the old structure comes out or gets crushed and filled. The new tank sets on prepared bedding, gets plumbed both ends, and gets backfilled in lifts so nothing shifts. Risers and lids come up last.
Booking
Tank work needs a permit here the same as field work, and the county confirms what your parcel requires. For a routine cleanout on a sound tank, call a pump truck instead. That is their work and they do it cheaper. (423) 555-0125 reaches a person.
My tank lid is cracked. How urgent is that?
Treat it as urgent, and treat it as a safety matter before a plumbing one. A concrete lid that has corroded from the underside looks solid from the grass and will not hold a person. Children and livestock are the real risk. Put something heavy and obviously wrong looking over it today so nobody walks there, keep everyone off that ground, and get it replaced. A riser with a bolted lid at grade is the permanent answer, and it makes the tank serviceable at the same time.
Concrete tank or plastic?
Both are current products and the site usually picks. Precast concrete is the default here, heavy enough to stay put and long lived when the baffles and the lid are maintained. A molded polyethylene tank weighs a fraction of that, so it goes in on lots where a concrete truck and boom have no route, which happens often on wooded and steep ground. Poly tanks need correct bedding and backfill and they need attention to buoyancy in wet ground. Neither one is a compromise when it is matched to the site.
What do the baffles actually do?
They keep the tank working as a settling chamber rather than a pipe. The inlet baffle sends incoming flow downward so it does not shoot across the surface and push scum out the far end. The outlet baffle draws liquid from the middle of the tank, below the floating grease and above the settled sludge. Lose the outlet baffle and grease and solids head straight for the field. Solids reaching soil is one of the four things that ends a field early.
What happens to the old tank?
It gets dealt with rather than left. The tank is pumped down to empty, the lid is removed, and the structure is either taken out of the ground or crushed and filled so nothing can ever collapse into a void under your lawn. An abandoned tank left intact and hollow is a hazard for whoever owns the property in twenty years. This is also the one part of our work that involves pumping, because a tank has to come down empty before it comes out.