While you wait
- Stop all water use — no flushing, no laundry, no dishwasher
- Keep people and pets away from any standing sewage
- Don't open the tank lid
- Don't add chemicals or "treatments"
- Note when it started and what you were doing (laundry? guests? heavy rain?) — it helps the diagnosis
What counts as an emergency
- Sewage backing up into the house
- Sewage surfacing in the yard
- Overflowing tank or riser
- ATU alarm with sewage odor
- Pump failure in a system with a pump chamber
Emergencies here cluster in the wet season and after tropical weather, when the water table rises under every drain field in the county at the same time. If your system floods in a storm: stop using water, do not open the tank, and do not run the blower on an aerobic unit that is under water. Most systems recover once the ground drains — the ones that do not were already marginal. One thing worth knowing before it happens: inside the lagoon program area, a failure bad enough to need a full replacement has to meet the 65 percent nitrogen-reduction standard immediately, so an emergency becomes an upgrade decision made in a hurry. Knowing your status in advance is how you avoid making that choice at eleven at night.
What happens on arrival. The crew pumps the tank to relieve pressure, then looks for the cause — a full tank, a blocked outlet or filter, a failed pump, or a field that can't absorb. You'll get a plain answer: this was a pump-out, or this is a field problem and here's what it will take.
All work is performed by local licensed, permitted Florida-registered septic tank contractors.