Everything that goes down the
drains in your house makes its way to the septic tank. This is a
large, generally concrete tank. (Older ones might be steel). The
waste enters the tank near the top of the tank. There are a pair of
baffles in the tank to keep the solids in the tank, preventing them
from flowing out of the tank with the liquids. Now, there are some
solids that sink.. and some that float. Bacteria in the tank break
down the solids as much as they can into a liquid form and this with
the water entering the tank leaves the tank on the other side of the
baffles. The liquid then flows to a leach field or a dry well where
the liquid enters the soil and is absorbed by the ground.
As long as things are working properly, no solids make their way
to the leach field and the soil absorbs all the liquid that winds up
there.
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