Septic tank? How often do you get it pumped?

[Corie]

I'm new to the septic tank. We have one at this house.

We had our septic tank pumped last November. When do we have
it pumped again?

[billysmommy]

About every 2 years.....you're good for another year :)

[maestramommy]

Dh's aunt, who's lived with a septic tank for 30+ years, told us every 3-5 years. It really depends on your usage. We just had ours pumped this summer. Before that I have no idea when it was pumped last. The guy who did it said everything was fine and that we didn't need to pump it again for a while.

There are those who say that if you treat it properly you shouldn't have to pump it at all! But ours is pretty old (30+ years) so we want to be good to it:D

[sidmand]

We just had this done and he told us every year. I thought he was just trying to drum up more business (we had been told every two years before) but there was actually a little chart he had and based on that chart we had gone from every two years to every year.

I can't find it right here but basically if the septic system was older than 10 years old, there were four people in the house, you had a 1500 gallon tank, and I'm thinking maybe one other criteria, it was every year. It still could be to drum up business every year but the chart made it seem more official! :)

So it ranged from every year to every few years based on the size of the tank, the number of people, the age of the tank, etc.

And it didn't smell as bad as I had feared (and this is only the second time we've had it done while we lived here and we've lived here seven years so we haven't done it as often as we should!).

[infomama]

We have ours done every other year.

[pastrygirl]

We do it every 2 years.

[clc053103]

every two years!

[wendibird22]

Our house is 4yrs old and had it done for the first time this summer. Our company told us every 3-4yrs for a family of four is fine.

This site has a chart based on household size and tank size:
http://www.inspectapedia.com/septic/tankpump.htm