There was a septic tank in the front yard until recently. It was removed and replaced with a 2,500-gallon holding tank that contains two identical macerator pumps, which pump up to a private manhole that we built on town land at the NE corner of 260 Eliot St, the house next door. From there the line is gravity fed under Eliot St to another manhole, almost directly across the street, and thence into the MDC sewer system that comes down Everett St and continues east on Eliot St. The house to the east, 260 Eliot St, also pumps up to the sewer but does not use our manhole because the town did not require them to have one.
The holding tank is oversize and large enough to serve one or two of the houses to the west if they ever wanted to tie into the sewer cheaply and easily. It has an alarm box in the basement that rings and flashes if one of the two pumps were to fail. That alarm has never gone off, except when tested, but if it did, there would be enough space in the tank for several days of use until repairs could be made, even if both pumps were to fail at once or if the electrical power went out for several days. The round cover in the front yard gives access to the holding tank and the smaller square cover is the pump electrical box. Unlike a septic system, this design does not require occasional pump-outs.