I have an aerobic septic system that requires me to add bleach to it from time to time. The bleach goes into a 4” diameter ~6 foot long PVC tube that is mostly underground. Unfortunately, about 38” down from the top of the tube, there’s a crack (I can’t see it but I know it’s there) and if I fill it above the crack, any bleach above it just leaks out. The whole 38” inches isn’t usable space because there’s another hole (by design) about a foot from the top and you don’t want to fill above that. Replacing the tube would cost me a couple hundred bucks, says my septic guy. His recommendation was to only put in 3 gallons instead of 4 and just do it 25% more often. I’m fine with that.
Since Sharpies have been in the news so much lately, I’m trying to think of a way to mark the inside of the tube so I’ll know where the new fill line is. Any ideas? I think that 30” is about as far down as I could go using just my arm.
I’m thinking a good old fashioned yard stick with a sharpie taped to the end. But then, DC is right. You’re going to want to throw it all away when you’re done, as they’ll smell like bleach and that never rinses off. So yeah, use the yard stick to measure a throw away stick, duct tape your sharpie onto the end and Robert’s your Mother’s Brother.
Or just a long stick with the 38" level marked on it. Insert it into the fill pipe so that the 38" mark is level with the top of the pipe and fill to the bottom of the stick.
Yeah, just get a piece of stiff wire. Bend about 2" of the end at a 90 degree angle. Measure 38" along the wire from that and make a hook that hangs on the top of the PVC. Make sure the ‘hook’ end is long/big enough that you can’t accidentally drop the entire wire in the tube.
Just hang the wire hook over every time you fill it. Fill it to where you bent the 2" of wire, and then remove the hook for next time. No need to mark anything.
Not sure how long a permanent marker line will survive in a bleach environment.
You can drill a small hole on the top. Attach a fishing line (monofilament) to this hole, cut to appropriate length and hang a fishing float to the other end. When the level reaches the float, you will know from the slack in the line.
Epoxy flue a six inch (greater than 4 inch) funnel to a one inch pvc pipe with the right length. Rest this system like a funnel with extended bottom on your existing 4 inch PVC pipe. Fill through this big funnel; when the level will touch the end of your pipe, you will know from the change in sound or you can lift it up like a dipstick.
Thinking [del]inside the tube[/del] outside the box for a moment: can’t you insert a slightly smaller pipe into the existing pipe, and just fill up the smaller pipe completely?
Nearly a meter down into a small pipe like that would be dark. I’d want something more colorful and easy to see. Look at a mark with spray paint or chalk. When my brother worked locating utilities, he had a plastic tube about 3 feet long that attached to a spray can of paint, to make marks on the ground without bending over. Something like that might work for this.
If it’s all just Sch. 40 pipe, you might also consider going the DIY route and repairing it yourself. Digging down 3½ feet or so and replacing the cracked section, while not fun, isn’t necessarily an insurmountable task. If you invested forty or fifty bucks in an inside cutting tool ($11 if you’re okay with removing only 3 or 4 inches at a time) you wouldn’t have to dig out all that much (the alternative is to dig a trench big enough to get into with a hacksaw and, let me tell you, that kind of sucks even with a backhoe).
As for putting a new pipe in the old one, I haven’t done the math but I suspect that going down a half inch in diameter would just about cancel out the extra height.