Where does my sump go?

[mithesaint]

My house was built in 1997, and I'm the second owner. The other thread about the septic system got me thinking. I have a leach field behind my house, and it's all fine and good. I recently started running my 150 gallon aquarium overflow into my sump, assuming the sump pumped into the ditch out front. It's a pretty deep ditch, and there is a tile that empties into the ditch that I don't know the source of.

Now, I'm not sure. I was looking at the sump pump output pipe, and it's pointed out through the back wall of the basement, sort of angled towards the leach field. Other than getting out a shovel and digging, is there any way to tell? My Dad has a tile probe, but it might be tough to follow 2" PVC with a tile probe. Can I put a dye into the sump and watch for that? If it empties into the leach, there won't be any dye showing up in the field anyway, will there?

Thanks.

 

[Corey]

Might be easiest to just watch the drain in the ditch the next time you pump a bunch of water through the sump. If water starts coming out that drain a few moments after the sump is active, then you've found your path.

There is no good reason for the sump to go to the leach field that I can think of...though I can come up with a few bad ones. However, people will sometimes (illegally) divert the sump drain to a city/sanitary sewer - or to a floor drain in the basement. I guess it can help get excess water out of the immediate area at the cost of overloading the sanitary sewer with rain water.

 

[Highbeam]

I guess it can help get excess water out of the immediate area at the cost of overloading the sanitary sewer with rain water.

The funny thing is that their home then becomes a great place for the excess sewage to go when the main backs up. Seen it happen, got to tell the lady to pound sand.

You can put dye in the sump and it will quite nicely color that whole ditch but if you have access to the outlet of that 2" pvc pipe you would do just as well to watch it pump out. Dye powder isn't exactly a home depot product and a little goes a long ways. My crew once died the whole river green for a short while and we got phone calls.