As soon as we noticed the drains backing up and the septic tank smell, we went out to investigate. I looked into the cleanout ahead of the septic tank and saw that the sewage level was rising, so we knew the leachfield was not working right. I looked on the septic tank pumpout website to get some advice on how to fix the drainage problem.

In the meantime, we had the guests to worry about. I called American Septic Tank to get their septic tank pumper truck out, and rented porta-potties on the web to keep the guests satisfied.

Within a couple of hours the septic tank was pumped, so we did not need the portable toilets after all.

We were helped by the water conservation measures that we did after the last septic stopup, when we put in lo-flow showerheads, aerators and high efficiency toilets. These meant that out guests put less water down the drain, so the leach field didn’t actually get waterlogged.