Installer Hunts Down Undocumented Septic Tanks

Inspecting onsite systems is not for the fainthearted, as Ray Erb of Thomas H. Erb & Sons in Lititz, Pa., can attest. When the new owners of a 1970s campground hired him to evaluate the patchwork septic systems, Erb found six of them instead of three, and one of those was being abandoned.The only documented system was seven years old and had three 2,000-gallon septic tanks. Erb’s team discovered that half of the 12-trench drainfield was dry, while liquid in the downslope trenches on the opposite side was 3 inches from the surface and ready to overflow. “The two siphons