Sewage Treatment Plants/Tanks/Etc

[Jerry]

Need to upgrade the current old cesspit for the farm house as its not fit for purpose any longer

House is 6 beds and used as a holiday home so frequently as 12 guests staying so the system has to be sufficient to cope with relatively heavy use.

Current location, which is the obvious location, is near a watercourse, less than 15m away.

What sort of systems do people use/recommend theses days?

Powered or non powered?

 

[robs1]

Need to upgrade the current old cesspit for the farm house as its not fit for purpose any longer

House is 6 beds and used as a holiday home so frequently as 12 guests staying so the system has to be sufficient to cope with relatively heavy use.

Current location, which is the obvious location, is near a watercourse, less than 15m away.

What sort of systems do people use/recommend theses days?

Powered or non powered?

Anything that is just air bubbled is good, moving parts in sewage ? No thanks, we have two different sorts but both use the same make of pump,

 

[Kidds]

Tricel seem popular around here. As said, just a bubbler, no moving parts.
Preferable if you can use gravity discharge rather than pumped, just for simplicity and one less thing to go wrong.
The bubbler pump is sited separate from the tank and be aware they can be surprisingly noisy. Better to house them in a brick box or similar along with some insulation to keep the noise down. They don't make a racket but a very noticeable humming sound, like a fish tank air pump on steroids.
The discharge is deemed clean enough to go into a watercourse.

 

[Nearly]

Bubbler but it's noisy at both ends.
Fit the air pump in a shed away from the tank and put a long pipe to it.
No need for electrics underground.
The soup dragon at the other end is harder to muffle.

 

[Still Farming]

See also A LOT of other simular threads on here too possibly...

GRAF UK | Rainwater Harvesting & Stormwater Management

GRAF UK has a range of rainwater harvesting, sewage treatment and stormwater attenuation solutions, suitable for any project.

www.grafuk.co.uk

 

[Welderloon]

Whatever you do, don't buy one of those Klargester ones with the diamond lids

 

[Doing it for the kids]

Bubbler pump diaphragms do go but are easy and quick to replace.

Run quite a few here and made the jump to bubblers, way forward

 

[neilo]

Assuming you have enough space to put a decent soakaway in, why not just put a bigger septic tank in?
No moving parts or electrics needed and (I'm told) still up to regs.

Why complicate things unnecessarily?

 

[Doing it for the kids]

Assuming you have enough space to put a decent soakaway in, why not just put a bigger septic tank in?
No moving parts or electrics needed and (I'm told) still up to regs.

Why complicate things unnecessarily?

Compliance?

 

[neilo]

Compliance?

I'm told that a conventional septic tank is still fully compliant, given the area needed for a proper soakaway. Obviously not to discharge into a watercourse.

 

[Boysground]

I have a bubble pump, as others said can be noisy. If you are having guests I would be careful of location

Bg

 

[e3120]

Assuming you have enough space to put a decent soakaway in, why not just put a bigger septic tank in?
No moving parts or electrics needed and (I'm told) still up to regs.

Why complicate things unnecessarily?

From what I understand, it's difficult to demonstrate sufficient soakaway for a decent sized tank in any soil with a bit of body. To be fair practicality would back that up - even where a short house extension gutter was sent here, was just a wet spot until a drain was found.

Not to ignore the installers probably get a better turn out of treatment plants.

A proposal here to cope with farmhouses/cottages has to manage 30 odd cube/day by paper calculations.

 

[Doing it for the kids]

I'm told that a conventional septic tank is still fully compliant, given the area needed for a proper soakaway. Obviously not to discharge into a watercourse.

I’m not certain but laws will only get tighter and keeping BOD levels down will be harder in a septic I would have thought

 

[neilo]

I’m not certain but laws will only get tighter and keeping BOD levels down will be harder in a septic I would have thought

We're doing somewhere up at the moment and my builder is adamant a septic tank is still ok. The architect has begrudgingly agreed too.

 

[Blue.]

Had an Ea visit recently and they asked if my tank had a soakaway,she ticked the box and moved on.

 

[suffolksmallholder]

I have an old septic that I tripled in size and is now a three-tank system.
Planners are happy.
SS

 

[Kidds]

We're doing somewhere up at the moment and my builder is adamant a septic tank is still ok. The architect has begrudgingly agreed too.

How does a soakaway function with weather conditions we've had over the last 9 months? I have free draining land but nothing was soaking away these last few months. I guess the drains have to be working for treatment plants too.
I think the biggest objection to septic tanks is that so many of them were just plumbed into the drainage network rather than a soakaway, certainly often the case in my experience.

 

[essex man]

There are a lot of people who will tell you to upgrade unnecessarily.
Stick to what you have if at all possible, cess pits much simpler.
Have converted one treatment plant here to a bubbler, much less hassle than previous pump based system, but noise an issue.
Also Have an eight house rotating klargester treatment plant that has worked well for twenty years, occasional maintenance prob averaging £200-300 a year.
Electricity was neglible when these installed but at 100kwh(units) a month cost hundreds of pounds a year now.

Still have number of cess pits, these are cost free!

 

[br jones]

Septic tanks ard perfectly fine as long as you have enough room for a percolation field

 

[Fogg]

We've got a garden of clay, and out soakaway has never really soaked particularly well, but this wet winter has been the final straw... I need to repace the septic tank with something that can just discharge to the dyke and allow the toilets to flush irrespective of how much recent rainfall we've had.

It looks like one of these bubbler things is the way to go. I know it's a "how long is a piece of string question", but roughly how much money am I going to have to spend to get the job done? And any pointers for product? It's a family house plus a site toilet that's just there for pretty light use. Lorry drivers and contractors.