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We get a couple of calls every month from homeowners who say their house smells like sewage, and the first thing I tell them is that the smell does not automatically mean the septic system has failed.
When homeowners ask me what size septic tank they need, they usually expect me to ask how big the house is. In South Carolina, that is not how residential tank sizing works.
A septic alarm is there to get your attention before the system turns into a bigger problem. On a typical pump system, the alarm is tied to the liquid level in the pump chamber.
A homeowner in Inman kept hearing the toilets gurgle every time water ran in the kitchen. My crew opened the tank and found the inlet baffle packed solid with ten years of hardened cooking grease, a cake dense enough to have narrowed the opening until wastewater started pushing backward through the fixtures.
What Septic Installation Actually Costs, and Why Stone Crews Should Care About the Order
South Carolina Department of Environmental Services (SCDES) took over the onsite wastewater program from the former South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) on July 1, 2024.
City sewer is not automatically cheaper than keeping a working septic system. In Greer, the official Greer CPW new-construction fee schedule lists a $500 sewer tap fee and a $5,739 capacity fee for a standard 3/4-inch residential connection inside the city.
South Carolina received 17,336 applications for individual septic systems in 2023-2024, up 132% from 7,456 in 2010-2011. About 30% of households in the state rely on septic systems instead of a public sewer (SCDES).
Peyton called us about a gurgling toilet. He had to deal with a specific, repeatable pattern: run the water in the kitchen for a few minutes and the toilet down the hall would gurgle; let the shower run too long and the drain would slow and back up.
A homeowner in Duncan called us last spring after collecting three quotes for routine septic tank pumping in Spartanburg, SC.
Most homeowners think septic pumping is pretty straightforward. A truck arrives. The tank gets emptied. The crew leaves.