My STR has a septic system - What should I do?

If your STR has a septic system you need to make sure your guests are aware, that you monitor it property, and have a good maintenance schedule.

Over 10 years ago, I recalled waking up, going to the basement, and instead of feeling the carpet under my feet, felt 1 " of water. Yes, our basement was flooded. During heavy rainfall at night, a temporary power outage killed our sump pump. We did not have a backup sump pump, a battery backup system, or a water alarm. The cleanup took weeks and ruined some furniture. Luckily, it was just water.

Now, imagine if this were a septic system. Instead of just water, the basement would be filled with crap…. literally crap. Yeah you can guess what usually goes down the toilet. The basement would be a total health hazard in a matter of hours, perhaps minutes. I can not even imagine what it would take to clean up.

If your STR has a septic system, you want to do everything you can to monitor it and ensure it is running optimally.  

One item you must know about your septic system is whether it is gravity-fed, a pump, or a hybrid. In our case, we have a hybrid. The main floor and 2nd floor are gravity-fed to the holding tank. There is no pump. The basement and a small 1 bedroom ADU feed into to a 50-gallon holding tank in the basement. The 50-gallon tank then has a grinder pump for the septic tank.

Here are the 9 items we do in regards to our septic system in our STR that enables us to sleep soundly at night.

Awareness

• We also have a sign in the kitchen sink stating we have a septic system and do not throw food waste and grease in the drain

• We have English and Spanish signs in all the bathrooms asking guests not to throw anything in the toilet, such as dental floss and feminine products.  We use these stickers: https://amzn.to/3tVVc6O

• Include this verbiage in the welcome email and house guide.

• Make sure to inform guests in the check-in email, house guide, and ask guests to inform everyone in their group. Over-communicate this.

  

Monitoring

• The 50-gallon holding tank only fits a single pump. We have a 'pump spy' gadget that monitors how often the pump runs, run-time, and motor current, and includes a high water float alarm. For $160, this is a must-have. https://amzn.to/3tw5fPP

  

• We have a separate float and siren, so if the water level is high, the alarm will be heard both inside the house and outside.

  

• We added two YoLink water sensors near the pump and the drain. If you don't have these devices, we highly recommend them. These devices are an inexpensive way to monitor for water leaks under the sinks, near the water heater, near the washing machines, etc. https://amzn.to/478aa7r

Maintenance

• We hope 90 percent of our guests will read and abide by the house rules. But this means 10 percent will ignore it. So, we clean the septic filter once a year.

• The external septic pump only needs to be pumped every 3-4 years. However, based on research, we decided to pump every 2 years.

• In case of emergencies, we have the personal cell number of a plumber who lives nearby. This has been a life safer as our pump has filed on one occasion and clogged on a second occasion.

Future enhancements

The new pump has a lifetime of at least ten years. It typically runs only 2-3 times a day. The item that worries us a bit is a power outage. We have no battery backup on the pump. We hope to add a battery backup to the house furnace and the septic pump sometime in the future. We also plan to replace the grinder pump proactively with the biggest pump we can purchase.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Wondering if cohosting is right for your property? Let’s talk it through — reach us at info@AdventuresInAirbnbs.com