Question
QUESTION: I would like to put a patio over top my septic tank with an opening to get in it to drain when needed. Can this be done and who would I need to contact to do this?

ANSWER: Hey, Mike.

By "patio," I'm presuming you mean a concrete one. Yes, you you can do it, but I don't recommend it. Just as sure as you do, the septic tank is going to fail and you'll have to tear everything up to replace the tank. It will be Murphy's law in action.

Usually a patio is pretty close to the house, so I'm a little surprised that the septic tank is that close to the house as well.

If you go ahead with concrete, a good concrete professional should be able to do a proper job. However, you might also consider a natural patio that uses landscape fabric to keep the weeds from growing, a natural gravel or fine mulch ground cover, various potted plants around the sides of the patio to give it definition, and just a small area of pavers or flagstone to put chairs and a table on.

Stop in at Borders Books and Music, or a large home improvement store, and look at their patio books. You might get some very good ideas other than creating a mass of concrete out back which reflects heat and can create drainage problems.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: the septic is far enough away from the house, in fact I have a 15 ft. deck (from the house) and then about 3-4 more feet before the tank. What you recommended was a small thought I had so my new question is what does something like that cost? And can I do it myself over the weekend?

Answer
Hey, Mike.

Those are two questions that are difficult to answer. For cost, I would suggest visiting your local home improvement store and talking with one of the guys there about what you want to do. He'll probably have some ideas and costs for you. As far as whether or not you can do it over the weekend, that simply depends on you and the overall size of the area that you want to fix up. My weekends involve getting up with the daylight, and when darkness comes, getting out the floodlights so that I can keep working until midnight. I, however, have no family--just me--so your situation might be vastly different. I wish I could be of more help on these two questions, but there are some things that the Internet just is not much good for.