The Scoop on Poop - #22 
By Susan Bashor-Reese
Karma... I believe. My experience is, even if you think you’re getting away with something, you probably feel too guilty to enjoy it anyway, so it’s not worth it. Things are generally pretty black and white - just like my old, old photo...
→ You cheat on your tests - you get caught.
→ You have sex without a condom - you get pregnant.
→ You talk behind your friends back - it comes back around... full circle
→ You forget to pump your septic tank? Wow, does it come back around!
→ You put things down the drain that aren’t meant to go down the drain....
Life is fairly straightforward, most of the time. And, so is poop. From your perspective, it’s simple... what goes in, must come out. From ours? Not quite as simple. When diagnosing a backed up drain for example, there is more technical expertise involved than one might initially suspect. We are very much like doctors. We ask you for the symptoms, take a look around and form our own diagnosis, then we try to cure it. Afterward, we write you a prescription for future care and maintenance, and hope we got it right! Most of the time we do. Drain cleaning is much more technical and challenging than most people think. Every house is different in composition and age, plus working “in the dark”, i.e., not being able to see under the ground or the interior of the pipes in the house, leaves us with no other option than to “guess” how to attack the back up. Or does it?
Thanks to some cool modern technology, we can now send a camera into the bowels of the house, videoing a problem pipe and literally seeing (and recording), where problem areas lie. “Problem areas” include collapsed pipe, broken pipe, roots, separation, decay, blockages, etc. As a souvenir you get a complementary VHS for your video library! In all seriousness, it is the quickest, (and most efficient) way to get to the bottom of the mystery (he, he). Once the mystery is solved, you’re still working with the one full service provider that can repair the broken or damaged line, without having to make another phone call.
That is what is so cool about Sweet Pea! If it involves human waste... we’ll take care of it. All of it! One call does it all. All sewer and septic related products are available at affordable prices from us, including RV chemical. Vent Stack Filters help to disseminate distasteful down draft odors from your roof vent. Effluent filters with check ball enable you to clean your filter without solids drifting into your drain field while you’re doing it and... our esthetically BEAUTIFUL riser lids are tougher than concrete - they don’t break, they look better in your yard than concrete, and, this one makes us happy... they have a large access port that allows us to clean and inspect your tank with some vision.
If you have an 8" riser in your yard for example and expect us to drop a 3" septic hose in it and then give you a report on the condition of your tank... well it’s not going to happen. It’s all speculation when we’re working in the dark. Large, accessible access ports are the best for septic cleaning and inspections because we can see what’s going on in there! Being able to see the crust layer is important. Being able to see that we’ve sucked the solids off the bottom is important (and the whole reason we’re cleaning the tank in the first place). Being able to see the tank to inspect for cracks, proper placement of the baffles, whether or not there are any roots, raw materials that are not being broken down by natural bacterial action, etc... is all such important stuff!
At this time I make my plea to excavators... please! Never install risers less than 24" again! We sometimes need to GET IN THE TANK and we’re not all skinny!