My husband and I bought a house for my father a few years back, knowing that it had an old (1960s) underground septic system that was probably on its last legs if not already gone bad (however such systems can go bad). The real estate agent said we could pay a lot to dig it up and inspect it but then we'd definitely have to get rid of it if it wasn't working vs. just going the ignorance is bliss route.Well now it's definitely not working. There's a large hole in the ground that keeps developing no matter how many times my dad tries to fill it in. Everything is still working on the input side, but seems like there's a leak at the output side.We've heard that getting anything septic related can run to $20,000 or $30,000. Also my dad is scared if he even has someone out to give him an opinion/quote....if they find out we haven't done work they can report us for a known problem.My husband wants to figure out a DIY solution, but my thinking is that since we'll eventually want to sell (possible in a few years if my dad moves to a city as he gets older and certainly when my dad passes be that in a few years or a few decades). I'm thinking that it would be hard to get buyers and that we might take a bigger price hit for not fixing it than we'll have to pay to fix it.So for those with experience, what would you do? Is my dad right that it's 'dangerous' to get quotes. Are there decent DIY fixes or is this a nightmare and we should go the right way? Also is this definitely a $20-30,000 problem? (in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, not far from the NJ border) via /r/DIY http://ift.tt/2uDkcfl
