Looking at purchasing a house on a little over an acre of land. Asking price is $339k. Now the house was built in 2002 and the septic system was installed at that time. It's a "mounded" septic system that has two large mounds towards the back of the property. According to the papers provided the system has been maintained with regular general upkeep. I have read a few articles about this system on Google but they are either too general or over technical. So my questions are:

1. At 18 yrs old how long will this system last?

2. Does anyone have experience with this system?

3.at 18 yrs old how much should I take off the asking price?

The mound is just the ending point. There may be more to your system than you think, or perhaps not.

One of our rentals had a septic system installed in 1955. I replaced it in 2002. It was simply a tank and drain field.

House I am in currently has a tank with aerator, pump tank with bio filter, which pumps to a gravel box, and then is gravity fed to a shallow drain field. It was installed in 2005. I did some minor repairs because it wasn't installed correctly as well as added to the drain field. Outside of that the system hasn't been touched and works just fine.

The cleaner the effluent going to your mound, the longer it will last.

GET A Septic INSPECTION! I had to replace mine last year and it cost me $30k. I have a Presby which is a type of mound. You Probably have at least one lift pump.

Get an inspection. Make it a requirement. It could be perfect or it could be on its last legs and you won’t know until it’s too late.

I know of at least 3 people that had septic system problems after buying. Mine was pushing 50yrs old.

Mine was installed in 1956. still going. But if I was buying my house I would get a professional consult on its situation.

Ohio passed a law and is in the process of having inspections and mandatory clean outs every so many years. I just had mine cleaned out and the Septic people didn’t know much about it. It will be through your county board of health. I would contact them and see what info they can give you.
A lot of the modern septic systems are like mini waste water plants.

I would not worry it. Get it checked (an inspection). My guess is you are not looking at a reduction in the price. That is considered a current septic system by most modern scales.

quote:

Originally posted by Sigfest:
Ohio passed a law and is in the process of having inspections and mandatory clean outs every so many years. I just had mine cleaned out and the Septic people didn’t know much about it. It will be through your county board of health. I would contact them and see what info they can give you.
A lot of the modern septic systems are like mini waste water plants.

This one is in lake County. Apparently the Health Board inspects every year (?). The paperwork said it was inspected in 2020 and some minor $200 repair was made. When I have it inspected prior to purchase who pays for that? The owner or me?

You pay for the inspection. One of my unpleasant childhood memories is dealing a septic system. I will not go into details.

An INDEPENDENT inspection is worth its weight in gold. The inspector is working for you and if there are problems you want to know in advance. I would not trust the state inspector alone on such a matter.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
You pay for the inspection. One of my unpleasant childhood memories is dealing a septic system. I will not go into details.

An INDEPENDENT inspection is worth its weight in gold. The inspector is working for you and if there are problems you want to know in advance. I would not trust the state inspector alone on such a matter.

Thanks

I've only bought one house before (20 yrs ago). I have no experience with septic

When we sold our home in NC due to Mrs. Mike getting a promotion. The company had a third party do a COMPLETE inspection of the property before we placed it on the market. The third party would help us market it and sell it if we hadn’t sold it before we moved and they also would buy it from us if it hadn’t sold w/I some timeframe.

They had an inspector come out and he wrote every single item up. They had a sewage company come out and pump out the septic tank and inspect the system.

I was allowed to fix any issues and take pics.

They dinged us on a junction box in the crawl space w/o a cover, three nails on the shingles that they called “shiners” that needed caulk, and use hydraulic cement on the distribution box for the septic lines....

Took me all of one day to fix.

I was impressed about the septic inspection as the guy dug up the distribution box, beyond opening the septic tank. He said that the company would have it pumped either way, so that they (company) wouldn’t inherit a problem if it didn’t sell quickly.

We priced it 5k below what we could asked for And it sold in 12 days.

My dad was in the water/sewage business....I know that five hundred bucks on an inspection is worth it’s weight in gold.

I don't know that the advice you will get on this will be very helpful. It will be comparing apples to oranges to grapefruit to onions.

Way too many types of systems, way too many variable with what's in the ground. (meaning the system, soil, water table etc etc.

Back in the 90's I did countless septic system inspections, required for home sales, but mostly refinance mortgages. Every single one of them absolutely worthless. (we have very simple setups here, cesspools or septic tanks and overflow pools) It was simply a ticket punch in the process, nothing more. We were upfront about it with the customers, if you want I can put on a big show, charge you a lot of money and lie to you. Or check that the toilets flush, dye test them to see that they're not running, and charge you $30 and give you the piece of paper you want.
There was absolutely no check, test or any other single thing I could do to their system to guarantee it would work one single day longer, short of them completely replacing what they had. (Honestly, not even that would be a guarentee. I've seen people have problems a month after putting in a new pool.)

Nothing wrong with having a septic system, but be sure that an inspection is part of the offer.

Make sure the inspectors give an opinion on the remaining life of the field as well as the condition of the system hardware, and that they also check for the existence of an alternate field and let you know where that is.

I had a rental house that had a septic system with a field that had petered out, and I needed to put in a new drain system in the alternate field - which involved digging drain ditches in the alternate field, putting in the necessary drain and valves, and then digging a long ditch to connect the new drain field to the tanks.

Nasty surprise to the budget. You won't want that.

And, don't rely on a general contractor or a 'home inspector' for this. Best is someone licensed to do the actual system maintenance and pumping, not a home inspector that just looks inside the dwelling. The septic pros go well beyond what cas talks about just above - open up the tanks, look at the hardware in the system. And, yes, they charge substantially more than $30 for the good inspections.

You (the buyer) pays for the inspection and chooses the inspector. Who pays for any corrective action is negotiable, depending on your offer terms and the market situation.

Thanks for all the info gentlemen.

Well, in my experience, I should have worried about it.
When we bought the house we currently live in, it had a mound. Well, unbeknownst to us, it was defective from the get go. We struggled with it for a few years, especially in the winter when the water table is high. Finally, we had to have the mound removed, and a pressure distribution system installed. Usually when is mound is installed, it is because some type of in-ground leach system won't work.
I would recommend that you have the entire system inspected by someone of your choice, not the realtor. The local health dept. likely cannot make any recommendation, but they may have a list of approved contractors.

Problems here can be a major pain in the ass, and very expensive!