Battaglia Excavation

Recently, we began having problems with our 50 year old drywell that is only used to receive laundry water and HVAC condensate discharge. The problem was that water was siphoning back into the basement deep sink. Originally I thought this to be a faulty check valve. I decided that what ever this problem was; we had to dig out the tank and expose the two drywell half covers or lids. When uncovered we found the tank full to overflowing past the covers. There were no access ports in either cover. To allow the tank to be pumped; an access hole had to be cut in one of the reinforced concrete covers. What had happened to the drywell was that after fifty years of use, the phosphate detergent had caused the drainage pores of the sandy soil to become blocked, forming a seal, not allowing for proper drainage. With the drywell pumped, I contacted a plumber to repair some inside valve issues. I also contacted Brian, owner of Battaglia Excavation. He explained to me just what I explained above; why the drywell had failed. He told me his fix would be to: * Install a new 1000 gallon drywell down stream of the old drywell. * Use the 50 year old drywell as a settling pond to separate the particulates in the laundry water. * Remove one of the old dry well lids (newly designated settling pond lid) and install a baffle with piping to the new drywell, then replace that lid. The baffle intake pipe would take a suction from the clean water region of the settling pond and gravity drain this fluid to the new drywell. * Finally, he would install a pump out riser with cover on the settling pond lid above the cutout access hole for future sludge removal. i decided that using Brian’s method would eliminate messy repairs to the old drywell and even use this tank as part of the new system. The new drywell could be installed in an area that has great sandy soil drainage. I explained that access to the yard was completely fenced in. Brian explained he has a small excavator and small dump truck that he uses. His written proposal included removing and replacing a section of fence. I had some home owner preps which included: * Removing some exposed in-ground sprinklers. * Cutting back a couple of tree branches to allow dump truck access. * Cutting back some side privet hedges to ground level again for dump truck access. Brian gave me a written estimate of $3700.00 that included everything; equipment usage, parts and labor. He started the job within the time frame I gave him and had everything completed including a final landscaping within two days; at his estimated cost of $3700.00. I am very happy with the job he and his coworker did and would highly recommend Battaglia Excavation for any drywell / septic related work. I am submitting photos of the project, all photos have a 2017 date, the camera was never reset. These photos were taken on 9/13/2019 & 9/14/2019. This was not septic tank work, this was actually drywell work, Angies List does not have a drywell category.