I'll have to try that! Thanks!

I think septic and garbage disposal worries are most overrated concerns in existence! Second would be Covid-19. I use them for any household waste and have NEVER had an issue with pipes, septic, clogs, etc. HUMAN HAIR is the only item I have had clog problems with. The only maintenance I've EVER done for septic? Have it pumped out every several years. I can't imagine having to do all these alternate time and energy wasting methods. Putting wet garbage in the freezer? Yuck. Never taking a shower while a load of laundry or the dishwasher is running? I find that actually hurting as the more water going down with the "bad" substances - the better!

Then you have never lived with an undersized, poorly designed septic system.

But isn’t this true with most things in life? If you plan ahead and size accordingly, you should expect no problems. If you move to the mountains with a rear wheel drive car, you will have some trouble in the winter. If you pull a 7,000 pound camping trailer with a half ton truck, you will have break downs. If you move a family of six into a home with a septic designed for four, you will have issues.

You know, sometimes life doesn't offer all of the choices you might like. There are times you have to modify your behavior to fit your living circumstance. I have found the faster I have figured that out, the happier and more peaceful my life became.

As time has passed I have solved many of the roadblocks but it took years, and learning and financial improvement to get it all together. Very few people are any happier than I, but planning ahead was never part of how it worked out. Sometimes you have to take what you get and crawl toward the lemonade.
Mrs. BGR

And it is never that simple!

First of all, septic systems are not sized to a specific number of people but to the number of bedrooms. So most everyone would assume that the septic system of a 3 bedroom house could handle 3 people ... but that is not necessarily so.

Second, when buying a home, one is rarely told the details of the septic systems. The inspection usually just tells you if the tank size is in accordance with the number of bedrooms and is the tank free of defects. However, most septic issues arise from the leach field portion of the system, which is not a typical inspection item, other than inspecting above ground for symptoms of an existing problem.

I trusted the "experts" who inspected and signed off on the septic system (as most people would). I had a basic understanding of the system, but didn't know enough to ask questions that exceeded a routine inspection.

In my case, the tank "size" was fine and met code. In fact the tank was significantly oversized given the number of bedrooms the house had. But it was a single, unpartitioned tank. Thats a poor design and really big problem ... but it met code (at the time) so nobody informed me of the potential "problems" that presented... which I eventually learned over time as each problem arose.

But what I did not discover until the old system was ripped out to install the new system, is that the leach field portion of the system was grossly under sized, poorly designed and poorly constructed (a 10 ft, single pipe w/o a proper vent, etc. ). No wonder there were so many septic issues!

In my opinion, be kind to your septic system. Most people don't really know much about the details of their specific spectic system. Better safe than sorry.