You can keep your "country plumbing" working day after day, year after year. Gerry Hartigan who has been installing and servicing septic tanks for twenty-five years, says "I'm still amazed to find out how little people actually know about their home sewage disposal systems. As Bismarck said, 'The less people know about politics and making sausages, the better they sleep at night.' Perhaps this is also true of septic tanks." However, with increasing numbers of people moving to rural areas, it's more important than ever to understand more about what is generally referred to as "country plumbing."