I’m at a loss. My septic tank is flooded. I opened it up and over a two day period the tank over flowed into the opening, approx. 12” deep by 4’ by 2’. The additional pressure from this in my mind would suggest the effluents in the tank should be backing up into the house. I checked the washing machine drain as it is in basement , the lowest in the house , it’s bone dry.
I had a company out today to test the soil for an alternate drain field. Only to find that the ground will not perk. They did 6 bore holes, Holes 1 & 2 hit gray dirt at less than 16” hole 3 on a hill went down 4.5’. This hill is approximately 6’ wide and step. The other 3 holes were on average 12” before hitting gray dirt. Not good.
The drain field is 32 years old. I understand it has far surpassed its life expectancy. My dilemma is what to do next? I’m not made of money. Everyone wants to try this and that and if it doesn’t we can try something else. I've looked at Terra lifting, secondary tank with aeration (system requires maintenance every 6 months, so I’m told), recirculating sand filter (looks promising, not sure on cost).
Looking for some input from someone smarter than I am in this area. Any help would greatly appreciated.



Edited 2 times.

We on computers, far from your location have a difficult time, compared to the professionals that you have used to perform onsite inspection of your issues.
Septic Tanks, are a working science and should only be serviced by professionals.

Best Wishes

quote; Looking for some input from someone smarter than I am in this area.

The phone book will be better suited to finding someone "in your area". The Internet is worldwide which is not much help to you.

Is a mound septic system feasible?

Well....

The basics of how a septic system works is that there is a tank and a drain field.

The simplified version of what happens is that solids settle in the tank and the water/liquids go out into the drain field.

The drain field is essentually a series of pipes with holes in it that allow the liquid to seep into the ground.

When you have flooding like what you were showing in the picture, the ground is probably really saturated with water already. The water that gets put into the septic system doesn't have anywhere to go as the soil won't absorb much (if any). If the liquid can't leave the system through the drain field, then it ends up backing up into your house.

Keep in mind, this can be a sign of other issues as well (broken pipe, system frozen, drain field plugged up).

If you have the money, I'd recommend calling a plumber to see what they have to say. If you don't, I'd wait a week for things to dry out a little bit and see what happens. As the ground dries out again, my guess is that the system will start working normally again.