[Bhigdog]

Quote:

I used to do this for a living, remember.

Yeah, you also said you KNEW Jim Thorpe's sewage plant didn't exist in the 80's and that it was only a primary treatment facility. Remember?

Your last post agrees with what I said. That every three years a homeowner will be required to uncover and inspect his septic tank. The cost will be borne by the homeowner @ about $700 plus inspection fees. Unnessesary and onerous!

Quote:

This constant level of mistrust of fellow Americans just because they come from a different political party, and listening only to those who do the same, has to stop.

HAW HAW HAW! Obviously you haven't been following the Harrisburg happenings for the last few years.
Can't we just all get along? Make luv not war.
Trust me, I'm from Harrisburg and I'm here to help. HAW HAW HAW!

Son, you got a lot learn.........Bob

[Dave@Moon]

Quote:

Son, you got a lot learn.........Bob

Well, I haven't had much time between paying $25/month sewer bills and all, but here goes:

$700.00 is an excessive fee for a pumping and inspection. They range upward from about $300.00, depending on tank size and location, with anything over $500.00 being exceptional. Either you've never paid this fee, you have and have been ripped off, or you've been listening to partisan fear mongering which apparently has even sunk (literally) to this depth. [img]<>/grin.gif[/img]

If you have been paying $700.00 for this on a normally sized tank every 3 years (or maybe less often?), I suggest you contact the Pennsylvania Septage Management Assn. to find a better contractor.

I'm sure you can find one that'll take $25/month! [img]<>/smirk.gif[/img]

[Bhigdog]

Quote:

you've been listening to partisan fear mongering which apparently has even sunk (literally) to this depth.

Errrr......Ahhhhh,............... This is kind of awkward, but the $700 (or higher) is the expected cost suggested on the Inspectipedia site for a 1000 Gallon tank. You remember Inspectipedia? That's the "expert professionals" you used as a reference to bolster your 3 year pump cycle reccomendation.
So the question on everyone's lips is......Who is the partisan fear monger?.............Bob

[Dave@Moon]

It's interesting what some people choose to fear.

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InspectAPedia.com is a building encyclopedia which provides © protected un-biased, in-depth information on detecting, diagnosing, correcting and preventing building defects, failures, and hazards.

And it took me a long while to figure out where the $700.00 came from, but I finally found it.

Quote:

Typical Septic Tank Pumping Costs: A typical fee to pump a septic tank is $200. to $300 to pump a septic tank up to 1000g in size, provided that the tank pumping access port has been uncovered and is readily accessible. If the septic pumping contractor needs to find the septic tank and then excavate the septic tank pumping access opening, expect to pay an additional $350. to $400. provided that no extraordinary measures are needed. Prices vary somewhat by region. A part of the fee you're paying your septic pumping contractor is the cost to dispose of the septage.

I actually looked up what quotes I could find online from PA contractors who didn't have to look for and dig up the tank. (Can you imagine how full it must be if it's been so long you can't find it!!!! [img]<>/shocked.gif[/img] ) Apparently (if PA honey dippers work off of the same fee schedule), it's an extra $100-$150 to peak inside after they pump it out and write down what they see.

I guess you've either never pumped yours or don't have one. I still say you could find a contractor for $25/mo. with no trouble, especially if all he has to do every other 3 year cycle is look inside and see that it didn't fill enough yet, which given tank and household size is probably at least the norm. (And yes, the reg says that's ok.)

It's funny how responsible behavior can be made to sound heinous when politics are involved.

=============================

(BTW, Be wary of the lowest bidder when having this done. We had a hauler in the Scranton area who was such a frequent and notorious roadside dumper we called him Dr. Giardia around the office!)

[nearchoclatetown]

Dave, while this has been entertaining, let's get out of the sewer and bring the discussion back to cars. What is your rationale for the emmisions test done in PA. The cars that are hooked up and tested , post '96, have On Board Diagnostic systems. All the mechanic would need to do is look at the dash display. BUT, because of Kathleen, the customer/taxpayer is charged about $40 to tap into a California computor. The most frequent cause of failure, according to local mechanics, is a loose or bad gas cap. I'm sure there's a logical reason other then revenue generation.

[Dave@Moon]

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I'm sure there's a logical reason other then revenue generation.

Nope, there isn't.

The DEP (as I understand it, I never worked in air quality) is limited to issuing/approving the the emissions standards that have to be met. The means to meet them were left up to PENNDOT, subject to EPA approval.

Here in Cincinnati we had (note the past tense) an emissions test that was way more complex than PA's. Every 2 years they put your car up on a dynanometer (along with several other tests including one specifically for cap performance) in a specialized testing facility run by a state contractor. The whole thing took about 10 minutes, with (in my station) 4 lines that rarely had more than 2-3 cars in them.

The cars needed testing every 2 years, and it cost $24.

"Kathleen" had nothing to do with PA's procedure. She, like you, is stuck with it.

If you want to do something about it, consider voting for the other party (wherever you are). The cozy relationships that have been set up between lobbyists (such as the service station operators') and the legislature/governor's mansion in PA is horrifying, largely due to the extreme level of incumbency that occurs (most PA offices might as well be elections for life). The legislature and the governor's mansion can lean on PENNDOT to no end because they control the purse strings and because most people in PENNDOT of any authority are political appointees. Civil service people in PENNDOT are all of such low level it's shocking. It's a very different story in the DEP.

BTW, the people here considered $24 and 20 minutes every two years so oppressive that they demanded a switch to reformulated gas to get rid of the inspection process. Either one was A-OK with EPA for our air quality, which is little different from anywhere in PA outside of Philly. If the state was as beholden to the garage owners doing the inspections as PA's is that'd never happen. As it was the state paid what people thought was an exorbitant amount to the contractor to buy out the contract here. By PA standards it was peanuts.

[Bhigdog]

Quote:

I still say you could find a contractor for $25/mo. with no trouble,

I'm sure I could since that would be $900 (plus loss of compound interest) for a 3 year inspection even if it didn't need a pump out.
What kind of tortured logic is that?............

[Dave@Moon]

Quote:

What kind of tortured logic is that?............

That paying for a cleaner world is what we're all doing anyway, and that the "unnecessary & onerous" costs you're complaining about are far less than what the average person in America is already paying without complaint in this area.

You can complain if they want charge you Philly rates instead of red-state midwestern rates if you'd like, however!! [img]<>/wink.gif[/img] [img]<>/smirk.gif[/img]

Like not allowing our wild fish populations to pay the price for poor/cheap highway construction, or not allowing the drilling for oil off of Big Sur, the American public long ago accepted that paying more for a cleaner world is a good thing.

[Bhigdog]

The tortured logic in question is why you would reccomend I pay $900+ rather than $700.

However, you have also worn me down with circular logic, obfuscation, pseudo scientific wind-baggery, and just plain untruths.

Ba-da, ba-da, ba-da,......That's All Folks!

[charlier]

Originally Posted By: nearchoclatetown

What is your rationale for the emmisions test done in PA. The cars that are hooked up and tested , post '96, have On Board Diagnostic systems. All the mechanic would need to do is look at the dash display. BUT, because of Kathleen, the customer/taxpayer is charged about $40 to tap into a California computor. The most frequent cause of failure, according to local mechanics, is a loose or bad gas cap. I'm sure there's a logical reason other then revenue generation.

If one relies only on the dash display it may be possible to have a vehicle "pass" an emission's inspection even when it should not.
What is to stop someone from using a scan tool to reset a "Check Engine" light just before a "visual" emissions inspection would be done?
Without hooking the car up to a monitoring device, the mechanic would have no idea that the reset was just done and all the "readiness codes"
are not valid. It is my understanding that the current emissions inspection checks the "readiness codes" of the on board computer to insure
that someone has not "reset" the computer. This is the reason why after a repair is done to a vehicle and the mechanic turns off the check engine light, it cannot be emissions inspected until the vehicle resets the "readiness codes" as the driver uses the vehicle.
This is also why inspection stations always warn their customer not to schedule their annual inspection on the last day of the month when their check engine light is on.

Personally, I do not care for certain parts of the emissions testing procedure.
For instance, Why when a vehicle is "Exempt" should the owner have to pay a fee of $20-25?
The amount of time necessary to check the mileage and the amount of time the mechanic's computer
needs to be connected to the Emissions processing computer is extremely short.
This is most definitely a money making situation for certain parties involved.

Don't even get me started on the 100s of millions of dollars of tax payer money the state of Pennsylvania flushed down the toilet
after they broke the contract they signed with the company that was to do centralized emissions testing.
They had actually started construction of 1 or 2 of these inspections stations locally before PA pulled the plug.