Hi All,
I have been living in the same house for over 30 years. I am about 50 miles north of NYC in rural Putnam County, where there are no sewer systems. We have our own septic system. I have no problems with the septic system itself, as I have the 900 gallon tank pumped out every 2 or 3 years. However, the house trap gets partially clogged with what appears to be soap, and if I don't scrape it off of the inside of the trap, my toilet downstairs starts to flush slowly. It only builds up on the house side of the trap--the septic tank side of the trap never gets any buildup. Every 2 or 3 months, I unscrew the house side cap, and instead of a 3 1/2" hole, I have about a 2" hole. There is usually a build up of what appears to be soap about 1" thick on the inside walls of the trap. I take a screwdriver, and scrape it off, flush the downstairs toilet a few times, and it all goes into the septic tank, and the downstairs toilet is good for a few more months again.
When this problem started (about 8-10 years ago), we switched from powdered soap to liquid soap in both the washing machine and dishwasher. I figured that the powdered soap was not dissolving completely, and that was the cause of the problem---evidently, it wasn't, as the problem still exists. It's a white mushy coating, like congealed soap. I told my wife to cut down on the amount of soap in both the washing machine and the dishwasher, but it still happens. Back then both of my kids were still in the house. As of about 5 years ago, they are both out of the house on their own, so the frequency of usage on the washing machine and dishwasher has gon down considerably, but the buildup is still the same. Is it possible that the buildup is some organic compound ???
Any ideas how I can cure the problem ???
RON
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