Canterbury septic emergencies run on the calendar. Late March into April on the river side of town. January and February up in the hills. We’ll come either way; here’s what’s actually going on.
About seven percent of Canterbury — a bit over two thousand acres — is 100-year floodplain, most of it along the Merrimack near the Interstate, with more wet ground along the Soucook on the east side. A leach field in that ground works fine eleven months of the year. Then the river comes up in spring, the water table rises to meet it, and there is simply nowhere for effluent to go. It doesn’t drain. The tank fills, the line fills, and the lowest fixture in the house is the first to know. Nothing broke. The ground is full.
The other end of the calendar belongs to the hill houses. Canterbury tops out near 1,390 feet by Forest Pond, and there are a lot of old farmhouses standing exposed on ridges with a shallow sewer line running out to a tank across a dooryard that gets plowed bare. A hard week in January with no snow cover and that line freezes. The house drains slower each day and then not at all. Usually the tank is fine. It’s the fifteen feet of pipe between the house and the tank.
And then there’s getting to you. The town’s own plan admits to “many dirt roads,” and the driveways off them run long and steep. In mud season a loaded pump truck is the worst thing that can drive up one. We can usually work it with hose from the road. If the honest answer is a day’s wait and no laundry in the meantime, we’ll say that rather than promise a truck and leave you with ruts to fix and a bill for the tow.
We come in off I-93 at Exit 18 or Exit 17. Canterbury is not far for us and we don’t treat it as far.
If your field is on the low ground near the Merrimack, have the tank pumped in March before the river comes up. A tank that starts spring empty gives you weeks of buffer that a tank at ninety percent doesn’t.
Pumping the tank relieves the backup in most cases. When it’s spring water, that relief is temporary and we’ll say so — the field won’t take flow again until the river drops, and the fix is going easy on water and pumping once more if needed. When it’s a frozen line, pumping buys time while we thaw it. When it’s neither, we’ll tell you what we found with the lid open and what it’ll take.
Same-day and after-hours response is priced above a scheduled pump-out, and we quote it on the phone before we roll. Thawing a frozen line is a separate charge and usually a modest one.
Probably nothing. If your field sits in the floodplain, a high water table in April means it can’t drain, and the backup is the system doing the only thing it can. We pump the tank to get you relief, you go very light on water for a couple of weeks, and it comes back as the river drops. If it doesn’t, then we talk.
Likely, especially on an exposed lot with the snow scraped off over the pipe. Don’t pour boiling water in. We’ll thaw the line and, once it’s open, talk about insulating or lowering that stretch so this isn’t an annual event.
Then it’s a hose job, or it’s a day or two’s wait. We carry enough hose to reach most Canterbury tanks from the road. What we won’t do is sink a full truck into your drive and hand you a second problem. Might cost us the job. Fine.
A pump chamber high-level alarm — common on the mound and pressure-dosed systems the hill ground here often requires. The pump has stopped or can’t keep up. Stop using water and call. Sometimes it’s a float, sometimes it’s the pump, sometimes it’s a tripped breaker and you feel silly. We’d rather you called.
Same day in nearly every case; often within a few hours. Canterbury is a straight run down 93 for us. If you’re at the end of a soft road in mud season we may have to talk hose or timing, and we’ll do that on the first call, not after we’ve driven out.
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