Sorry, Melissa, I'm not familiar with septic systems. How frustrating for you. Our little neighborhood is on a lagoon system...and I really don't understand how that works either.

Melissa, We have a septic system, but not an aerobic one, so I don't know what to tell you. Do you have a list of reasons that the alarm would sound? If so, can you check the things on that list and try to rule out the reasons it is sounding for yourself?

Look, here's a video I found online that tells you what it means when your alarm goes off: (maybe something in the video would help)

Video: My Aerobic System Alarm Went Off.....

Hazel, Our septic tank goes to a lagoon that is situated about 100' northwest of our house. The main reason a septic system is routed to a lagoon instead of having lateral lines is because the soil is not suitable for lateral lines. In our case, it is because our soil is very dense clay and doesn't drain fast enough for lateral lines to work properly. So, all waste goes from our house to the septic tank, and then the graywater goes through a long buried pipe to the lagoon. Once in the lagoon, it evaporates over time.

This is where it gets tricky. I was totally repulsed by the thought of a lagoon. I pictured it being ucky, yucky, gross water. Nope. It isn't.

By the time the gray water leaves the septic tank (where the solid waste stays behind in the tank and decomposes), it is almost sterile water, though it has a high nitrogen content. The friends I mentioned above who gave us our dog, Sheila, had 2 family members (the wife and the adult son) who worked in the state of Texas, testing water quality. They told me that the water in our lagoon would be a favorite of the wildlife because it was so clean and sterile (albeit, high enough in nitrogen that algae grows well in it). They said that if we watched, we'd see that the wildlife (and livestock and pets as well) would prefer drinking lagoon water to regular pond water. I said "uh huh, okay, whatever", and didn't really believe them. Lo and behold, they were speaking the truth. The deer, rabbits, turtles, frogs, possums, birds of all kinds including water fowl, foxes, bobcats, skunks, and even on at least one scary occasion, a cougar, all would drink from the lagoon and not the big pond. It was weird. I had thought the lagoon would smell bad. It doesn't. It probably would be a great place to grow water lilies, but the turtles would eat them, so I don't bother. Our lagoon is about 20' x 20' and probably 8' deep. Maybe 10'. I haven't seen the bottom of it in so long that I no longer remember. I assume a neighborhood lagoon would be a lot larger than ours. We've been here since 1999, and the lagoon has never given us one bit of trouble. Back when we had the perc test done before building the house, I was disappointed when they said we'd have to have a lagoon, but it turned out to be a great thing. Several friends of ours who have lateral lines in parts of our neighborhod with sandier soil than we have had all had all kinds of problems with the lateral lines flooding in heavy rains, collapsing after a year or two of persistent heavy rains, clogging with tree roots, etc. We've never had one problem of any sort with ours.

We were extremely lucky because we had plenty of wide open space downhill from the house, which made choosing a lagoon site a decent distance from the house very easy. As a bonus, that area had just the worst brownish-yellowish-grayish clay I've ever seen. It made putting in the lagoon easy because that clay holds the water so well that the guy digging the lagoon didn't have to bring in anything to stabilize the clay or improve its ability to seal and hold water. I've seen some lagoons at some homes near us that I feel are too close to the house.....I just would't want a lagoon I could see while looking out my kitchen window, for example, or sitting right next to the yard where kids play. Our lagoon is out of sight and out of mind. Most people at the north end of our road have sandy loam and have standard lateral lines with their septic system, but we have clay here at the south end of the road and, hence, a lagoon. I think, in this instance, we are the lucky ones.

Dawn

Yes. Our neighborhood has two lagoons actually. There is no smell that comes from them at all. I'm not sure why our neighborhood was built with lagoons instead of individual septic systems (or city sewer). Our neighborhood really isn't in a city, maybe that is why. When we did our remodel and built our shop, we didn't have to get permits or anything.

Sorry...didn't mean to derail your thread, Melissa. Hope you've found an answer.

Thanks guys! We've had the septic people out twice more since I posted this. I just now got back on here after getting a cold. I quarantined myself in my room so no one else would get sick this time. Thank goodness no one else caught it before I did that. Anyway, the septic apparently was having a wiring malfunction with the float. They are coming back out tomorrow to replace it.

Yay! At least you finally have an answer. I hope that you are feeling better. It seems like everyone we know was either sick last week or is ill now. There's a lot of stuff going around. I suppose it is that time of the year. So far, knock on wood, our family remains healthy.