It’s In the Ground

A capable team takes on and beats the challenge of wedging a conventional onsite system into this editor’s narrow, wooded, sloping Northwoods lake lot

When fishing on Birch Lake, during the summers before we bought a lot there last December, I occasionally would hear machinery laboring all day as someone cleared land to build a cabin or remodel a house.

It annoyed me on two levels: The noise disturbed my peace and quiet, and it told me someone else was pursuing a dream not available to me. On Tuesday, June 1, the noise was coming from my lot on Birch Lake, in Wisconsin’s Northwoods.

I observed (and occasionally played go-fer) as a team of professionals spent much of the day installing a conventional septic system. It was a show of professionalism and teamwork that in a few hours did more for my appreciation of the onsite industry than six-plus years of editing this magazine. Things look very different when all of a sudden you’re the customer and you’re being well served.

Dealing with reality

I’ve written in this space (July and September) about the challenge of fitting the treatment system on a 100-foot-wide, heavily wooded lot with a steep slope down to the water. Before installation day, a builder, a soil tester/surveyor, and an installer had teamed up to determine where the system would go.

Now it was time to make the vision real. I don’t need to explain in detail how the trenches were dug, the chambers laid, the tank set, the piping connected, the excavations backfilled. You know how that goes, and this was after all a basic system with a 10- by 66-foot drainfield.

I do need to say what a great experience it was to observe the whole process up close. The idea of putting an entire system in the ground in about six hours may

not impress you, but it definitely impressed me, especially given the obstacles these guys had to work around.

Magic on tracks

To refresh your memory, the drainfield had to go across the width of the lot, on its only relatively flat swath of land, about halfway between the road and the lake. Part of the job was to preserve trees to the extent practical. Here, John Hoban of Schrom Excavating in Minocqua was a magician with the John Deere Model 120 excavator, fitted with a bucket that included a grabber for picking up and moving downed trees and brush.

A few nice red oaks and one mature birch had to go — there was simply no choice. But the trees Hoban could avoid, he spared. He played the machine in a variety of ways:

• Rough when he had to rip out saplings, topple a tree, or collect up the slash.

• Delicate when he had to cut close to a tree that would be staying.

• Fast when it was time to cut the trenches across the cleared ground.

• Deliberate when digging the hole for the septic tank and taking pains to avoid cave-ins in the soft, dry, sandy soil.

I may never know where someone learns to be, at the same time, so precise and so efficient with what is, after all, a good-sized machine, not mainly designed to be nimble.

Then there was his boss and company owner, Todd Schrom (who, as it turned out, hails from the next small town over from where my wife grew up in southern Minnesota). He quickly buzzed felled trees into logs with a chain saw, helped lay out the chambers and run the piping, and hauled the cut brush away in a sharp-looking green dump truck.

Man with the level

John Ottoson, representing Everest Builders of Minocqua, showed up briefly to drop off a roll of silt fencing and stakes. And, orchestrating it all, there was Brian Grundy of Brian Grundy Septic Systems in Minocqua.

As the trenches progressed, Grundy kept checking elevations with his laser transit and directing the excavator with a point or a gesture. Before I knew it, one trench was dug, the chambers laid, the trench backfilled, another trench opened and chambers installed. Thomas Bablitch, from the Oneida County Planning and Zoning Department, arrived at noon to inspect the open trench and to sketch out an as-built drawing that will be part of the system’s permanent record, eventually available online.

Hoban began carving out space for the septic tank and, right on cue, Dave Trapp, from concrete caster Trapp Bros. of Woodruff, arrived in a flatbed boom truck with the tank strapped on board. When the tank hole was ready, Trapp ran the hoist with a pendant control, while Grundy and Schrom nudged the tank into position.

Piping, effluent filter, high-water alarm, risers, backfilling. It all happened quickly. Hoban then did finish work on the drainfield with the excavator while Schrom and Grundy installed the silt fence and neatly raked the surface.

Extra touches

Grundy then ran piping from the septic tank to a spot about 15 feet from the parking spot for our 27-foot camper trailer, and there installed an inlet for the trailer’s sewer hose, so that I can easily discharge the grey water and black water into the tank.

And speaking of that trailer parking space, Hoban leveled it off with the excavator while Grundy checked the grades. Schrom then used his pickup truck to back the trailer in, and Grundy checked with a bubble level on the rear bumper to make sure the site was level. Of course, it was. This whole procedure took all of 15 minutes, starting with ground that was very rough and uneven.

Soon the excavator was loaded onto its flatbed carrier and, after handshakes all around, everyone was gone. Now there’s a clear sandy area halfway down our hill, bordered on the low end by black silt fence that will stay in place until vegetation takes hold on the exposed ground. In the meantime, that soil will need an erosion-control blanket to protect it against heavy rains.

A few days later our well was drilled, down to 80 feet. So from then on our trailer would have all the conveniences, and the site would be ready for the cottage we plan to build in (ideally) 2011.

Team effort

It was clear that the guys who built my system had worked together before. Grundy doesn’t own machinery — he contracts for that with Schrom Excavating. In any case, each man knew exactly what to do and when. The coordination was impressive. Of course, that kind of efficiency is part of what keeps onsite systems affordable.

For the record, our tank was made by Trapp Bros., the Quick4 Standard chambers by Infiltrator Systems, the effluent filter, high-water alarm, risers and lids by Polylok.

In the end, I am grateful for the onsite industry — for the product manufacturers and for the enterprising people who are in business to install the treatment systems that enable folks like my wife and me to build homes and getaway retreats.

Next time I’m fishing Birch Lake and hear the sound of machinery working on someone’s lot, I imagine I’ll experience not annoyance but appreciation for the artists and craftsmen hard at work.



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