As many of you know, Eliminite was developed in Bozeman, Montana (Oh, and for the record, it is snowing horizontally today in Bozeman). A unique challenge presented by this fact is that it is cold here and it stays cold for a significant part of the year. I know it can get just as cold in say, Wisconsin, but the difference and probably more important is the length of the growing season not just the lowest reported temperature. The growing season is very short in Bozeman....Last year I had a garden full of frozen, green, cold weather tomatoes to prove it....My point is, the climate in Montana provides a harsh proving ground for our onsite systems. So when I provide data showing our system produce total nitrogen concentrations in the low to mid teens, those systems are in Montana. If you hunt you can find Montana results for some of the competing systems, for instance, the textile filters average around 30 mg/l total nitrogen(when they are working). Our results are about two times better and our cost is about half as much as a typical textile system(This means you will be at least 4 times happier with an Eliminite system than a textile system. Unless of course you already own a textile system...then nothing short of winning the PowerBall Lottery can make you happy!). The aerated septic tank systems (you know, the ones with blowers and compressors and fans) total nitrogen results are abysmal. I feel sorry for a homeowner that gets duped into buying one of the aerated septic tank systems thinking that they are going to meet state nitrogen standards. There will probably be more than a few lawsuits once homeowners become aware of the fact that the stinky, noisy thing in their backyard has never met their septic system permit requirements. (You don't have to take my word for it...just ask around) But back to my point. Eliminite has been steadily growing and moving into new areas. New Mexico is one such area.
We have several system installed in New Mexico and have been receiving nitrogen numbers for those systems. This is interesting to me because it is really the first time we have installed Eliminite systems is a less severe climate. (We have quite a few in Colorado but those are in the mountains at 7000 ft and above where it is cold. The nitrogen numbers from these systems are generally in the low teens with the exception of several of the community systems....these are single digit systems.) Here are some numbers from a residential system in NM.
3/15/10 TN ~58 mg/l
3/24/10 TN ~40 mg/l
4/16/10 TN ~9.5 mg/l
The numbers improved in response to an operational change I made. I expect them to improve on the next sampling run.
Another system in NM reports total nitrogen of about 8 mg/l. These are real systems serving real homes with real wastewater. And can you guess how many alarms we have received from them since thay have been installed? ZERO. Not one alarm....and no washing of textiles...no fluffing little foam cubes....no shoveling feculent peat, no wood chips to replace. No "maintenance". Just Inspections as required by the permit. Now I know the "experts" scream that onsite systems require perpetual operation and maintenance contracts in order to function (most of them don't function even with the perpetual operation and maintenance contract) but the fact is any system requiring this level of maintenance, such as needing to be connected to a dedicated telephone line 24 hours a day, is simply an unreliable system. Eliminite is reliable and simple to maintain because it was designed to be that way. I get the sense that other manufacturers deliberately designed unreliable systems in order to develop an additional cash stream resulting from the maintenance contracts. It is similar to the cell phone company giving you the cell phone if you sign up for the contract....but that's just my opinion.
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