Welsh cottage

[TimD]

Hi all...

New arrival.  I seemed to keep landing on this forum while researching septic tank & treatment plant related things, so decided to sign up in anticipation of seeking a second opinion on various options.

 

The property which principally concerns me these days is a remote cottage on a Welsh hillside.

"Cottage" perhaps exaggerates its charms; "bothy" might be a better description.

This place will never be on AirBnB or one of the twee holiday cottage rental sites.  It's "one for the connoisseur" as they say.

It's unoccupied during winter, but the warmer and drier months will see a steady stream of extended family, friends and folks who appreciate the place for what it is using it as a holiday getaway.

(Not so much this year though.)

 

Final access is along farm tracks; after winter has done its damage it can be marginal whether it needs a 4WD to get to it until the holes are filled in.

Water is out of a stream and small reservoir via filters & a UV sterilisation tube but no-one drinks it without a very good boil (there's sheep and sometimes cattle on the hillsides).

Sewage goes to a dual-chambered concrete septic tank on the property which noone seems to know much about other than that it was put in before there were standards for such things (in the 1970s sometime?  I vaguely remember visits which might have been in the late 60s/early 70s when you did your business in a chemical toilet full of blue liquid which would subsequently be emptied in a hole dug in a neighbouring field).

There is electricity (although again, back in the late 60s/early 70s I remember it was paraffin lamps and candles after dark).

 

Until recently it has largely been looked after by the generations previous to me but as they're all getting on a bit its now falling to us young 'uns (relatively) to take more of an interest if the place is to have any future.

 

Needless to say, with it being in Wales the thing which seems to demand urgent attention is getting the septic tank legal.  Indeed it appears to me that that should have been done by January 2020 latest... but so far as I can tell there seems to have been some confusion over the terminology around "exemptions" and "registering for an exemption" and someone interpreted "you need to register for an exemption" as "you're exempt from registering".  Ooops!

 

Expect I'll be posting more on this topic on the "Waste and Sewerage" page at some point, depending on what we find out we need to do.

 

[ProDave]

Hi and welcome.

 

As I understand it an existing septic tank that discharges to a land soakaway probably does not need any updating.  It is only septic tanks that discharge to a watercourse that must be replaced by a treatment plant.

[TimD]

Well this is one of the things which no-one seems to be able to remember about it... does the tank outflow go into an infiltration system in the field downhill from it (which, on the face of it, looks perfect for such a thing), or does it actually just go into a convenient ditch on the other side of a nearby wall?  (Well defended by brambles so it's not anywhere anyone's gone looking in recently.)

 

Noone's been able to locate any old paperwork from the installation, and no-one remembers it ever having had any maintenance or pump-outs.  Over multiple decades!  But then the place has plenty of extended empty periods.

 

Travel restrictions permitting, someone will hopefully get a last visit in before year end to drain the water system before winter, and be able to have a poke around down by the tank now we have a better idea what we need to look for.  I half wonder if we should try and do a "dye test" but not sure how much water you realistically need to put through to have a chance of seeing anything.

 

[Ferdinand]

Welcome.

 

You eat something scarlet and take a pee.

[Cpd]

If it’s not broke and does not smell I would leave it alone. Spend money on the house and access. If your really interested then put some food grade dye through the system and see where it comes out or not as the case may be. I have three old cottages on a remote bit of Scotland and do all my own building and maintenance and have to go by “if it’s not broke don’t fix it” as my list of important jobs is so huge I can’t afford to get distracted.......

[TimD]

Totally agree with "if it ain't broke don't fix it" sentiments!  There's always plenty of other little jobs need doing at the place to keep us busy (indeed, it's the access has had a bit of effort put in recently; better drainage and run-off channels etc).

 

Unfortunately the new Welsh regulations on septic tank discharges (now stricter than in England or Scotland I think) now don't really leave us with much choice but to pay some attention to what's going with that aspect of the property.