Constructing septic tank access covers

When our septic tank was installed, it was simply covered with sand, gravel, and dirt. This is no good when/if you need to get the tank pumped out as you have to find the access covers. This would be even worse if you had to find the covers when the ground was frozen or there was a lot of snow cover. We planned to finish this area with some flagstone that we have stashed away, but before we put that down we had a little project to find the access covers and create an easier access for them.

This photo story is from August 20th. David Reddekkopp came over and gave me a hand with the project. (David actually did most of the work as I had a raging migraine.) It took quite a while to find the first access cover. We initially used my memory to locate the first hole we dug, but after digging halfway through to Taiwan it was obvious that my memory was was worthless. :( So I went back to my photo library and found two photos that helped us locate the access covers.

This photo was taken after about 2 1/2 hours of work. David is standing on the first access cover.

The access covers are 30" (2 1/2 feet) across -- bigger than I had remembered. I thought the covers were about 2' across, which is what I used to calculate how much wood I needed. The covers were also deeper than I had expected - about 20" vs expected 12"... This meant I didn't have enough wood....


Digging is hard work, and David is relaxing a bit, taking a break.

Tawny was curious about the hole. I suspect that maybe she could smell a bit of the fumes from the septic tank, but she was a bit timid about jumping into the hole.

However, jump into the hole she did... Taz is curious but he's a bit more timid than Tawny is.

This is the box that we built to put over the access cover. This box is 3' square and has pressure treated fence boards on the exterior where the wood is in contact with the soil.

Because the big rock is slightly sticking out above the access cover, we had to make some adjustments to the box because of it.

David wasn't that comfortable using a circular saw but he got some practice in. Here David is cutting the angle on a piece of fence board for the side.

This is what the box looks like with the first piece of wood on the top. After this photo was taken, I pulled some landscape fabric through on the side with the customize boards to help keep the sand/gravel from washing in through any openings.

Here David is looking pretty pleased. Why, you ask? Well, it's because of this...

The first access cover is completed, including a custom notch for rock. Because of the gap around the box, Tawny was quite afraid to jump across to the top. Once I filled in the gap with sand and gravel so there wasn't any yawning chasm between the gravel and the box, neither Tawny nor Taz had any fears when stepping onto the top of the cover.

Freda and I had looked for some kind of manufactured stones to put on the cover, as the stone we have is irregular. In the end, we settled on 18" square rubber tiles (made from reycled tire crumb rubber). Although it is slightly more expensive, we think this would be better as it is not as heavy as concrete pavers, and also because the rubber is flexible, we don't have any worries about cracking.

If you're comparing prices, Home Depot charged ~$10 for a 12" round rubber circle, and Rona charged ~$7.75 for an 18" square rubber tile. On a per square foot basis, HD was over $10/sf and Rona was about $3.50/sf (18" square tile is 2 1/4 s.f.), or about 1/3 the price of HD...

Red tailed Hawk

August 9th: We saw a pair of Red tailed Hawks in the trees. The birds were quite far away so I held a pair of binoculars in front of the camera lens and was fortunate enough that one of the photos actually turned out quite well!

Aug 16th: another of the ubiquitous deer. This was at dusk which is why there is a lot of fuzziness in the photo.

Critters, weather, and floors

August 2nd: We have seen a chipmunk living in the rocks by our front steps, and we have seen a groundhog just across the road, on occasion (he lives on the hill facing the lake). But this was quite a bold groundhog, especially since the dogs always sniff around these rocks.

August 6th: Tawny was anxious to go out to play, and so she helpfully brought a pair of Freda's socks to her so she could get ready to go...

August 6th: As you may know, the floor manufacturer (TORLYS) is very graciously paying to replace our flooring because it was improperly installed by their authorized dealer. I will not hesitate to say that that flooring store is not an authorized TORLYS dealer any more. Torlys is supplying new flooring and is paying their premier Ottawa deals to remove the old flooring and install the new stuff. They will not remove and reinstall the shoe moulding, so we have to do that. I am limited to how much I can do in a day because of my excruciating headaches, so I have been doing a little bit at a time. Here you can see a section of the flooring and baseboard where I have removed the shoe moulding.

August 7th: Another incredible rainstorm!

Finished garage trim, and a few other things...

This is the finished garage trim. From this photo, it looks nicer than some houses. But don't look too close. The trim is just rough 1x4.


A neighbour who has horses gave us some bags of composted horse manure. We haven't decided what to do with it yet.


A beautiful deer by the side of the road. I cropped out the car mirror.


The owners association has purchased some benches which I assembled I also built platforms for the benches to sit on so you are not surrounded by weeds when you are sitting on the bench.

Garage trim outs - part 3

This is one window that has been fully trimmed out. It sure looks a lot neater.

This is the arched window as it was a couple of days ago. The flexible plywood was installed on the arch - but it was a bit short. The bottom trim-out and the right side was installed also.

Here you can see that a small piece of MDF (6 1/2") was used to complete the arched section of the window trim-out. The left side and the left piece of trim also has been installed.

Here several pieces of trim have been installed over the arched part of the window.

Garage trim outs - part 2: What is flexible plywood?

Did you ever wonder how the curved sections of the trim-outs were done with 3/4" MDF which is very inflexible?

Well, the curved build-outs are not made out of MDF, it's made from flexible flywood.

This is a close-up of the flexible plywood. You can see there are five layers. In normal plywood, the orientation of the layers changes 90 degrees from one layer to the next. In f.lexible plywood, the middle thin layer is oriented in the long direction of the pannel, and the other four layers (two on either side) are oriented with the grain in the short direction.

And that conculdes our plyood seminar.

Garage trim outs - part 1

(July 15 photo) One of the things the builder kept promising he would do (and of course he did not do), was complete the garage trim-outs. The material for the build-outs is 3/4" MDF (with a saw kerf out of the back to fit into the slot in the window, and 1x4 for "trim" around the windows. We are also going to put some 1x4 around the bottom of the wall as "baseboard" because we need to cut the drywall up a bit more, as the water climbs up the wall in water (snow melt water) and soaks the drywall. The inspector we hired said this would happen, and the builder said "no it wouldn't:. Well, guess who was right, and no prizes for the correct answer.

Because we would not be able to fit a 4'x8' sheet of anything in the car (let alone a sheet of 3/4" MDF which weighs about 80 lbs, depending on the humidity), we needed to get the sheets cut. I took measurements and figured out how many pieces we needed for the build-outs and the fewest cuts needed to get the most out of the sheets. We ended up needing 4 sheets. First we went to the Orange Borg, and before we started loading the sheets on the cart, I said to Freda that we should check that their panel saw was working. We walked to the back and saw the "out of order" sign - that was good that we hadn't wasted our energy lifting those monster sheets.

So we hied off to Rona. They guys at Rona had trouble with their saw and it took them about an hour to make all the cuts. We didn't complain about this because the people at Rona were very nice and charged us only $10 for the cuts (cost is $1/cut, although usually the first cut on each sheet is free). I think we had 22 cuts in total. We spent a few hours a day over the next week priming and then painting a coat of semi-gloss paint of the MDF sections and the 1x4s.

This is what the window sections look like now. The window is installed in a "window buck" with spray foam. The vertical side pieces and the top piece of the window buck are solid 2x12 lumber, but are severely weathered as you can see. The bottom of the window buck is two 2x4s with a gap in between so the concrete could be put in there properly. Exposure to UV light has changed the foam from a pale yellow to an ugly dark yellow-orange colour.

(July 17) This is what the window looks like after the build-outs have been installed. As the walls are not straight, I had to cut the build-outs at an angle (about 3/4" in 5') so they would sit flush with the drywall. I installed the build-outs with 2" finishing nails - you can see the nails in this photo.

This is the same corner as above. You can see the shims on the vertical piece, where I had to put some backing behind the board so the build-out would be square. I have not installed the 1x4 here yet.

I was unable to do anything more today due to my severe headache and the constant rain all day. (MDF makes a tremendous amount of sawdust so I need to be able to cut it outside. BTW - MDF is made out of fine sawdust and glue.)

Trimming a path

Before: The weeds on the walking path down by the lake were between 5 and 6 feet tall.


After: now the path is easily walkable without getting scratched up by the weeds.

The critters

This is an Eastern Phoebe, a member of the flycatcher family. This bird and its mate have made a little nest on a column on our porch where they are raising their young. We have seen at least two young, but think they may have three babies in there.


This good sized garter snake was making a home in our composter, as it is nice and warm, since it is made of black plastic after all.


Freda had gone over to visit the neighbours and Taz was missing her already. Just a moment before, Tawny had been looking out the window right beside Taz - it was too cute!

A summary of Mary's visit

Mary can't hide the fact that she really likes dogs. She was always giving the dogs treats and they were usually licking their lips in anticipation.


Mary and I made a trip to the National Gallery when she was here. "Maman", just outside the National Gallery, is a huge spider. Mary's two favourite paintings are "The Temptation of St. Anthony", attributed to Hieronymus Bosch, and "Voice of Fire" by Barnett Newman. The chapel is the part of a real chapel that was dismantled and reassembled inside the gallery building.


Things Mary did when she was here (when it was not hosing down):
top L: unloaded stuff from trailer and installed foam bed protector. (photo taken after use)
top R: loaded about 1.5 cubic yds of clay from back of property into trailer, and then shovelled it into the hole by the tree stumps. (see blue bucket at top of image). This shows the rain that was pelting down - a common occurance during Mary's visit!
bottom L: sifted rocks out of dirt piles and levelled it all out.
bottom R: got rid of junk. Hmm, lawn needs mowing again -- must be all that rain!