Pat

Right. The level you worry about is above the outlet, up in the riser, because that means the water isn't leaving. If it's sitting exactly at the pipe, the system is doing its job.

That's what it does. A septic tank is meant to be full of liquid up to the invert of the outlet pipe at all times, and everything above that line is just air. Pumping empties it, and then it refills to the outlet and stops.

Two adults using a normal 150-odd gallons a day will refill a 1000 gallon tank in about a week. Nine days is exactly on schedule. What you actually paid for was removing the sludge on the bottom and the crust on top, not for it to stay empty.

Call now, but call for an inspection and a pump-out rather than an emergency. Greener grass over the trenches is normal to a degree because that's where the nutrients are. Squelching underfoot two days after the rain stopped is not, and that's the part I'd act on.

While you wait, do three things. Cut household water use hard for a week, so short showers and laundry spread over days rather than five loads on Saturday. Walk your gutters and downspouts and make sure none of them discharge anywhere near the field. And keep everything with wheels off it, including the mower if you can stand the long grass.

That could be most of your problem. A roof that size sheds a startling amount of water in one storm and dumping it above the field means the soil never gets a chance to drain. Extend it 20 feet downhill this weekend, it's a $30 job.

Bang on average. Eight to twelve is typical, less if the system cycles a lot. When you fit the new one, set the precharge before you put any water in it, and check that precharge every autumn with the pump off. Five minutes a year and you'll get the full life out of it.

Your tank has lost its air charge, or the bladder has failed. That's what short cycling means nine times out of ten and it will burn the pump motor out if you leave it, because starts are what kill submersibles, not run time.

Check it in this order. Knock on the tank from the top down with your knuckles. It should sound hollow for most of the height and solid only near the bottom. If it's solid nearly all the way up, it's waterlogged.

Then kill the breaker, open a tap and drain the system to zero, and put a tyre gauge on the schrader valve at the top of the tank. With no water pressure in it, it should read 2 psi below your cut-in, so 28 psi for a 30/50 switch. If it reads 10, pump it back up to 28 with a bicycle pump and you're done for a while.

If water squirts out of the schrader valve instead of air, the bladder is torn and the tank needs replacing. They don't get repaired.

When you drew the level down to the pump, you pulled water from the very bottom of the borehole where sediment and iron sit, and you stirred the whole thing up. That usually clears with time and flushing.

Run an outside hose bib wide open onto the lawn for 45 minutes, well away from the septic field, then check a glass. If it's better, run it again the next evening. Also flush the water heater tank, because that's where the rust settles and quietly comes back for weeks after everything else looks clear.

Chlorine handles bacteria and some iron bacteria. On dissolved iron it will just oxidise it into visible rust particles and make the staining worse until you flush it all out. Test before dumping bleach down a borehole.

Iron filter first, and put it ahead of wherever the softener eventually goes.

At 3 ppm you are well past what a softener is happy with. It will strip some of the iron, but iron fouls the resin bed, and a fouled bed stops removing hardness properly and starts smelling. You end up buying resin cleaner every month and replacing the bed years early.

With pH 7.4 and no sulphide, an air injection oxidising filter is the straightforward choice and it will land inside your budget with room to spare. It oxidises the iron, catches it in the media, and backwashes it to drain on a timer. Then the softener you buy next year sees clean water and lasts fifteen years.

It does nothing for hardness. You'll still have scale and still need extra soap. But orange staining is the damage that doesn't come out of fabric, and hardness is the one you can live with for a year.