We build Septic Systems correctly.

In the vast majority of the Tico homes and businesses, you cannot flush toilet paper down the toilet. If you have ever visited Costa Rica you know that in almost all of the rivers and streams are polluted with household, industrial and often raw sewage.

Here are some of the reasons for this problem:

• The building codes allow undersized (by US standards) septic tanks and drain fields.  When they no longer function, raw sewage escapes into the environment.
• Tico Municipal codes allow the gray water from the kitchen, laundry and showers to be dumped outside.  From there, the waste water and contaminants just keep migrating down hill until they encounter a stream, creek or river.
• Unfortunately, the Costa Rican government does not have the resources for a proper inspection process. Even if the plans call for a large system, the builder can put in a small system to cut costs and nobody will know.
• While we cannot change these problems, we do build our houses in ways to not make the existing problems any worse.  We build our septic systems to the stricter US codes.
• This means that you can flush the toilet paper!
• All of the “gray water” from the kitchen, showers, laundry etc., is processed by the drain field.
• Just like in the US, we size our systems for the maximum occupancy of the house.  This often results in the use of a septic tanks that is 2 to 3 times larger than what Tico builders would use for the same size house.
• We perc test every lot to determine the soil characteristics and then design the proper drain field for that lot. In general, our drain fields have 5 to 10 times the surface area of what a Tico builder would use for the same size house

If you want more information on septic systems, I suggest you read this guide to septic systems produced by Texas A&M University.