Free Online Tool Helps Educate Onsite System Customers

The University of Minnesota created a customized owner’s guide to raise awareness about proper use and maintenance of septic systems.

Many agencies and organizations offer an owner’s guide for wastewater systems, but they are often generic or limited to one or two major components. No comprehensive guide has been available for customers’ particular systems — until now. With funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the University of Minnesota Water Resources Center has developed online software that wastewater professionals can use to create customized guides that tell customers about their specific system.

It’s called the Community Septic System Owner’s Guide, and contractors can register and use the tool for free by going to h2oandm.com.

“The easiest way to describe it is to say it’s like TurboTax, the online tax-preparation software. You put the specifications into the online form, and the software draws in related information to generate the guide,” says Sara Heger, a Ph.D. engineer and researcher at the Water Resources Center who led the project.

The guide is suitable for single-family homes, cluster systems or commercial buildings. Research partners in other areas of the country also looked at the software, and the result is a tool that adjusts for climates and conditions other than Minnesota’s.

At the end of the process, the software generates a PDF file that can be shared electronically with customers, printed for them or posted on the website of a homeowners association responsible for a cluster system. Guides average 20 pages, but the complexity of a system and the number of photos or other graphic elements can change that. Stock images of a septic tank and other components are available, but the owner’s guide can be enhanced with manufacturers’ images of specific components. Companies will be able to customize guides with photos from each job so clients see exactly what they have.

 

Getting started

Once wastewater professionals create online accounts, they can set up a template. With photos and other information stored in their online account, and with practice, they can generate a new customer guide in five to 10 minutes, she says.

“For most people, I think the biggest barrier to using any type of software tool like this is that first project,’’ Heger says. “It’s working through the options and learning where to go.”

The tool will work for systems that are installed now and for those installed 20 or 30 years ago. People who have just paid for a new system may be more receptive to education, but supplying a custom guide for an older system builds credibility with customers, too, Heger says.

People who have seen the online tool are excited and have their own ideas for it, Heger says, such as linking it to maintenance scheduling software. That may come in future versions, but updates will require more funding, Heger says. The USDA grant ran through August, providing enough time for finishing tweaks. For example, the software was adjusted to take into account regional names for the same thing, for example, a low-pressure pipe system in one part of the country is called a pressure trench elsewhere.

“For this version we wanted to cover the basics, and we did that. I will never pretend this will cover 100 percent of the systems installed, but I hope it will cover more than 95 percent.”

 

Help for everyone

It’s not only designers, installers and pumpers who can use this, Heger says. County sanitarians, health department officials or state natural resources staff may also find this guide a useful tool. 

No other major household or business purchase comes without technical documents, she says. Buy a car, a computer or a refrigerator, and there is a manual for each. But costly and complex wastewater technology doesn’t typically come with an operations manual, she says.

“The industry can help itself, and professionals will look better to customers if they give people the information they need to help themselves,” Heger says.



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