Hello all - -

I am new to this site, and want to say thank you in advance. I'm frustrated and would appreciate any feedback.

OK... here goes. So my boyfriend and I just bought a place in Leadville CO about a month and a half ago. It was built in 69 and has a septic system. Our home inspector seemed to think that everything was OK with the septic but did not do any in-depth tests, he just ran the water in every sink, the shower, and the dishwasher for about an hour. There is only one bathroom in the house. So that brings you to speed. Now, here's the problem:

First and foremost, we noticed that when the washing machine is running through it's cycle water backs up into the shower. Not a ton of water and it drains fine. Then, this last Thursday and Friday I noticed that a.> the toilet water was low b.> the toilet was bubbling. I noticed (heard) the bubbling while I was in the shower. After that, it bubbled when I flushed the toilet. It didn't bubble constantly though. Then, late on Friday night, the toilet backed up and would't go down. My boyfriend plunged the hell out of the system and the water went down a little, where you could flush the toilet and the bowl would fill to the brim and slowly drain. Then, on Sat morning I went to take a shower and the shower was a quarter full of icky water.

My boyfriend then took the toilet out of the bathroom, causing the bathtub to drain all over onto the bathroom floor through the main drain. He went under the house and couldn't find what he called a "trap." So he snaked through the large toilet hole with a small household snake. Nothing happened. He then rented a snake through Home Dept. And when he was snaking he'd hit a certain point and every time the thing would go up into the vent. So nothing happened there.

Like I stated earlier, I am frustrated and really really need a shower! Any help would be much much appreciated:)

sounds like your septic tank is full to me try rid-x or something but more than likely you will have to get someone to come out there and drain the septic tank

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And when he was snaking he'd hit a certain point and every time the thing would go up into the vent.

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The boyfriend was going down the wrong pipe if he came up a vent. Msilva has a point. Has he pulled the manhole cover from the septic tank to see nif it was full and needs to be pumped?

Hi there, thank you so much for getting back to me, both of you!

To answer your questions, speedball, we can’t find the cover to see if it’s full and we’ve looked all around the property. It must be buried, I am assuming, and I have tried to get ahold of the previous owners but they won’t get back to me.

With the snake going up the vent….he went under the house and the plumbing looks like a sideways T: kind of like this: -I. The main drainage pipe is the horizontal pipe. Where it T’s is where the vent goes up and out the roof and where the drain goes down into the ground. There is no “clearing area,” or area where you can access the pipe after the vent. Any thoughts?

[QUOTEAny thoughts?][/QUOTE]
Do what we have to do to locate a septic tank that's buried. Take a rod and grind a point on it. This is called a probe or sounding rod. Nor start where the pipe goes underground and follow it with the pointed rod. If the pipe isn't buried too deep you can track it back to the tank. The tank will be in the same side of the house the outlet pipe is. Even if the tank's buried beneath the frost line you will still have inspection ports that are brought up to the surface. Good luck, Tom