Septic Pump and Control Panel Wiring on a New Build in Kalama, WA

On septic jobs, the electrician shows up in the middle of someone else’s schedule and has to be done before the hole gets filled. On this new build in Kalama, WA, we ran the underground power to the tank risers, wired the pump and floats inside them, and mounted and started up the control panel on the house.

What the electrician does on a septic system

The septic contractor sets the tanks and the pump. We handle everything that makes it run, and on a treatment system that’s more than one circuit:

• The underground run from the house out to the risers, in conduit, put in while the trench is already open
• The pump wiring inside the riser, in a box that’s going to spend its life wet and buried
• The float wiring, which tells the panel when to turn the pump on
• The control panel on the house, mounted, powered, wired and tested

Get the order wrong and somebody’s digging up a finished yard. On new construction, working on the general contractor’s schedule instead of our own is most of the job.

The control panel is most of the work

From the outside it’s a gray box on the siding. Inside, it’s a small control system: a Siemens LOGO! controller, a contactor, terminal blocks, an AUTO / OFF / HAND switch, an alarm test, and separate breakers for the controls and the pump.

Two details matter more than they look:

1. The pump and the controls are on separate breakers. If the pump trips, the controller and the alarm stay on to tell somebody. If they shared a breaker, a dead pump would also kill the alarm.
2. The terminals are labeled. Ground, pump neutral, pump L1, control L1, controls neutral. Whoever works on this in eight years probably won’t be the person who wired it.

Built for a wet box

Everything at the riser end sits underground in a damp box, so we pick parts that last there: boxes and fittings rated for wet locations, connections you can reach from the top of the riser, and enough extra wire in the box that the next person can pull the pump without cutting anything.

Same goes for any dedicated pump circuit, whether it’s septic, a well or a sump. The wiring is simple. The wet location is what ruins it.

Building in Kalama, Woodland or anywhere in Cowlitz County and need the septic side wired on schedule? Call 360-828-7143 or get the pump wiring scheduled, and we’ll work around your trench date.