Where'm I gonna live?

[footfootfoot]

We have (I had--w00t) a cesspit, c.1850. Just a big dome of dry stacked shale about 8 feet deep and 15 feet in diameter. Gets pumped out about every year now since it is failing, when we get really heavy rains it fills with ground water and takes a few days to drain back down. Most of our neighbors' cesspits have failed in the past few years and they've replaced them. Costs about 5-7 grand. At $200 a pump out, you could do two a year and it would still take you 12 to 15 years to break even.

The yeast/bacteria stuff sort of works. The guys who pump your tank will tell you it's BS. Yeast and some fungi will eat oil and grease, probably some bacteria too. What happens with the cesspits is the dry stack stone gets packed in with solids and won't percolate the liquid through.