Septic tanks.....again

[steveR]

One law for the foreign owners of our utility companies, another law for us.

Very VERY true. Huge quantities come into a brook through us as can be readily noticed after heavy rainfall. Turns out that there is a large catch sewage tank that "overflows" into the watercourse about 3 miles upstream in the local town. STW and Council are well aware of it and do nowt....

 

[David.]

Just put a Clearwater(Klargester) E6 in last week, no big dramas, £1650 appx from Pipetek, 4m load of dry/lean to bed it on, and to backfill up to invert level, then shingle to fill hole up. Small compressor to bubble contents and no moving parts in the turds.

 

[Fossil]

Untill you get a visit id do nothing.what is it with officials just want us to keep spending for no real benefit
Nick...

Having spent most of the last three days unblocking culverts in ditches other people’s septic tanks discharge into, I would have to disagree!

 

[DrWazzock]

just found out its compulsory and because my neighbour is selling, it needs to be done. I recon £4000 should do it, but what if I couldn't afford it? No grants or government loans. You have to pay full VAT on the plant, and apply for god damn planning permission to install!!

This is my concern. Without help or encouragement, it just isn't going to happen. Personally I think a grant scheme or waiving of VAT would be public money well spent. And planning permission? If ever anybody needed a reason not to bother, then that is it.

 

[Courier]

Big mistake years ago when the effluent charge was added to the water supply bills- I told Yorkshire Water that we didn’t mind paying just so long as they took responsibility for the waste water. They didn’t want to though [emoji848]

 

[Grain Buyer]

I'm surprised there is no in line secondary system I can just bolt onto the existing system. Seems daft to scrap something that's has worked fine for 100 years. some sort of screen/ filter/ settlement device that you attach onto the discharge pipe. The EA said they'd phone me back yesterday......no call so far.

 

[Widgetone]

just found out its compulsory and because my neighbour is selling, it needs to be done. I recon £4000 should do it, but what if I couldn't afford it? No grants or government loans. You have to pay full VAT on the plant, and apply for god damn planning permission to install!!

Lucky you, i'm paying £7.5k plus £400 for an easement plus £230 building regs fee!

 

[Water Wheel]

I'm surprised there is no in line secondary system I can just bolt onto the existing system. Seems daft to scrap something that's has worked fine for 100 years. some sort of screen/ filter/ settlement device that you attach onto the discharge pipe. The EA said they'd phone me back yesterday......no call so far.

I looked at the Biorock web site from an earlier post.

The Bio Rock doesnt - but they are a bit more expensive.

http://biorock.com/how-biorock-works

http://biorock.com/

Could you put their second part onto an old septic tank ?

Our system dates from 1900 and looks very similar to the Bio Rock in principle , a two part brick built septic tank draining into a settlement chamber and then an open coke (?) filter bed.
The filter bed is about twice the area of the original tank. Not sure where it goes after that.

 

[Andrew K]

just found out its compulsory and because my neighbour is selling, it needs to be done. I recon £4000 should do it, but what if I couldn't afford it? No grants or government loans. You have to pay full VAT on the plant, and apply for god damn planning permission to install!!

JFDI?

 

[muppet]

Has anyone got a link to the new regs? Seriously hoping I haven’t got to replace 13!!

 

[Widgetone]

Has anyone got a link to the new regs? Seriously hoping I haven’t got to replace 13!!

Um, see post #3

 

[Farfrae]

Could you put their second part onto an old septic tank ?

No idea but Podtanks do offer that solution

http://www.podtanks.com/septic_tank_conversion.html

Other than that I know nothing about them

 

[DrWazzock]

Abso blooming loutly,not a fan of the systems ,too much too go wrong

From what I've seen, the single household treatment units that are supposed to discharge clean water to a watercourse are as bad as the old septic tanks. Somebody installed one that discharges into our watercourse, all legal and official, but it now just pumps out stinking grey sludge. I think the problem is lack of maintenance and there is more to go wrong. I really think the council, the water authority or some public body needs to take charge of this and provide multi household treatment facilities or collection tanks in some of of the villages that don't have mains sewerage. Otherwise it's turning into a serious mess with ever more development and no coherent plan for dealing with the sewerage. Drainage beds are fine in free draining areas but here they tend to back up in winter as the water table rises, hence just about everybody's tank outlet goes into a watercourse. A lot of residents of the village near us don't even know it goes into a water course.

So either leave it alone and accept that the watercourses will act to some extent as open sewers, or it needs a properly concerted plan by local government. It's unreasonable to expect amateur householders of all ages and abilities to be able to solve this problem individually. They don't have big enough gardens to provide adequate soakaways for starters.

 

[Fordson1]

I wonder if putting a new 2nd septic tank in line after the original would improve the situation enough. Fairly clean waste water coming out of one tank would hopefully be even cleaner coming out of the 2nd and less likely to block up the soakage system. Maybe cheaper than replacing the original tank with a treatment plant. Even if a treatment plant is needed, maybe putting it in line with the existing tank and letting the original one continue to do what it does would have to help. On the other hand, those inspecting may not like unusual set ups.

 

[muppet]

Um, see post #3

Muppet by name... thanks, skipped through too quickly...

 

[Sonoftheheir]

Has anyone got a link to the new regs? Seriously hoping I haven’t got to replace 13!!

Better start saving up?

 

[stroller]

I wonder if putting a new 2nd septic tank in line after the original would improve the situation enough. Fairly clean waste water coming out of one tank would hopefully be even cleaner coming out of the 2nd and less likely to block up the soakage system. Maybe cheaper than replacing the original tank with a treatment plant. Even if a treatment plant is needed, maybe putting it in line with the existing tank and letting the original one continue to do what it does would have to help. On the other hand, those inspecting may not like unusual set ups.

I think it depends on what type you have, from reading this if you have a recent 2 chamber one it would be ok, but if you have an old one like mine it won't work.
http://www.podtanks.com/septic_tank_conversion.html

 

[stroller]

This site is quite informative:
https://www.wte-ltd.co.uk/best_sewage_plant.html

 

[ollie989898]

As I understood it water companies are allowed to let it go in periods of intense rainfall as the system can never handle it?

 

[phillipe]

So basically the water companies want us to do their work