Russell griffiths Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 Hi has anybody got any experience with the biorock system, it has been recommended to us by the company dealing with our drainage and rainwater. We are in an area with a very high water table, has anybody got a good system for use where the ground water is only 600 mm below ground level. Cheers russ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 (edited) Our BioPure is only around 1m above the water table. The only problem with installing any treatment plant like this is pumping the water out of the hole so it's dry enough to put some concrete in as an anchor ring, to stop the tank floating up when empty. I think there have been mixed experiences with the BioRock, enough to put me off a couple of years or so ago when we bought a plant, even though it had the advantage of not needing power. Having said that, I've heard that they have changed/replaced the media and this has, I believe, resolved some of the issues some had. There is also a fix for the slight odour problem others have had with the BioRock, and I think they now suggest some remedies for any odour from the air vent pipe in their installation instructions. I know someone (not on here, AFAIK) fixed the vent odour problem by placing the vent in to the centre of a hollow planter. Apparently the plants and soil in the planter absorb the smell. Edited February 21, 2017 by JSHarris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 The issue is not what treatment system but where you discharge the effluent. With such a high water table, a normal infiltration field will probably not work. This is exactly the situation that we faced. My initial solution was going to be a treatment plant with pumped output, pumping to an above ground filter mound soakaway system (a pile of expensive graded sand). A second system I looked at was a Puraflow system that does much the same thing with an above ground tank filled with peat as a filter medium. Both were rejected by building control and we ended up discharging to the burn, but up here we were only allowed to do that when we had exhausted all other options. Solve the effluent disposal issue first before deciding on which treatment plant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stones Posted February 21, 2017 Share Posted February 21, 2017 We had a Biorock installed at our last house. Have a read of the user review I did on the old forum http://www.ebuild.co.uk/topic/13972-user-review-of-biorock-sewage-treatment-system/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 Ok a bit more info. We currently already have a septic tank (fibreglass onion shaped klargester) and it seems to work fine it has been in place for 25 years, but building the new house it needs moving. So we are going to be forced to use something new, so if this system has worked for so many years can we argue that we can do something similar or have the regs changed that much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 32 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said: Ok a bit more info. We currently already have a septic tank (fibreglass onion shaped klargester) and it seems to work fine it has been in place for 25 years, but building the new house it needs moving. So we are going to be forced to use something new, so if this system has worked for so many years can we argue that we can do something similar or have the regs changed that much. Your old system probably stopped working around 10 to 15 years ago, in reality. This is the reason that treatment plants are now preferred over septic tanks. What happens with a septic tank is that it relies on the leach field to do 90% of the treatment, the tank itself is just an anaerobic settling chamber and does very little to remove any pathogens (in fact, being anaerobic it is always a significant source of potentially nasty pathogens, hence the same "septic tank"). The treatment in a conventional septic tank mainly happens in the aerated soil around the leach field drains, where aerobic bacteria in the surrounding soil feed on the high biological oxygen demand effluent and render it safe. What happens after a few years is that the biofilms develop around the field drains and seal off the surrounding soil from air, so the soil around the field drains then also becomes anaerobic and septic. This isn't usually visible unless you dig up an old leach field, where the black and pretty foul soil around the drains will be apparent. In effect, a septic tank ends up dumping raw effluent out of the drains after a few years, and presents a potential health and environmental risk. The snag is this can't be seen, as far as the user is concerned it's all working as it always has. Treatment plants work differently. They are all aerobic, so they don't allow the release of anything with a high biological oxygen demand (BOD). This means that their effluent is pretty harmless and can be discharged into a watercourse, large soakaway or whatever, with very little risk of harm. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Your 600mm challenge isn't too much of an issue. Provided you follow the General Binding Rules (I assume you live in the UK, apologies if I have that wrong). @ProDave's advice (above) is the most important thing to sort out first. Given that you follow those, then my research lead me to follow @JSHarris , @Stones and other's advice: choose a digester that has the fewest moving parts. And if there are any moving parts, don't immerse them in the raw discharge. Inevitably, they need maintenance. So we choose a digester that does nothing more than blow bubbles through the liquor. And the air compressor (the only thing with moving parts) will be held in our Winter Garden, so it can be maintained in the warm and dry. Push comes to shove, I can always get Debbie to stand there and blow down the pipe 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crofter Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 @Russell griffiths Do you know the location of the current soakaway/leachfield? In an older system this might just be a pit filled with stones. In newer systems (last 20yrs or so) more likely to be a herringbone pattern of pipes set in stone filled trenches. And in the latest incarnation, pipes arranged in a circuit to prevent dead ends. I don't know what Building Control and/or EA will want you to do in treating this as a new system or simply maintenance/repair or an existing one. I briefly considered building a new system for my new house which would also take over the existing system for my current house, and serve both properties. The EA (well, SEPA in my case) told me that from their point of view it would count as an upgrade to an existing system and be viewed favourably. However it was obviously still a new system and would have needed BCO approval. In the end I realised it was going to be much cheaper and simpler to make the new system smaller, and keep the existing system as is, it just meant slightly shifting the driveway position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 I would say the first thing you need to do is dig one or more test pits to determine the true level of the water table and perform percolation tests. Basically that's normally a 1 metre cube hole, with a 300mm cube hole dug in the bottom of it. you fill the 300mm cube hole with water and time how long it takes to soak away. Of course you may find, like me, the 1 metre hole remains partly filled with water. The fact an existing system has been "working" for so long suggests to me your water table is not really as high as 600mm. Only when you know the percolation rate and water table can you proceed to design a working system. It can end up using up a lot of land area, quite usually more land area than the house itself. And there are building regs limits on distances from the infiltration field to buildings, boundaries etc that also complicate matters. I caution you to get this right at the start, otherwise you could end up with a house with no drainage solution = you cannot live in it. Or in our case you can't get a building warrant until the drainage solution is approved so that delayed us starting by several nervous weeks while we thrashed out a solution. do you have a proposed site layout drawing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
volcane Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 We are planning to use a Biorock due to its simplicity and lack of ongoing costs. I have spoken to a an engineer who works with very large sewerage systems and he only flagged the potential disposal of media whenever it will need replaced. The only ongoing maintenance is to check and wash the filter annually. I have read @Stones report on ebuild and hope his problems were due to poor installation and this will result in us (my builder!) being extra careful when installing the Biorock. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 Thanks for all your input guys. Thanks to @JSHarris for his explanation on how this all works. @ProDave I'm going to have a dig around on Friday to check level of water, i will try to up load a pic and it will probably explain why our water table is so high. If you look at the wooden looking building with the car parked in front this is where we are trying to get consent for the new place,as far as the leach field goes I have no idea where it is we have owned the site since 1991 and the septic just does its thing, I get it emptied every 2 years. We have loads of space for a new one, we also have a company working with us on flood risk assessment and disposal of rainwater and it was them that suggested the biorock as they said the cleaner discharge means we could stick it different places. I will go back to them. For the money they are charging they might as well earn it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Wow. Where are you. the middle of Hollamd below sea level? Do you own the whole "island"? I take it from the pictures that the water table is pretty constant, unlike here where it goes up and down a lot, sometimes very quickly. I had to choose when to dig the hole and plant our treatment plant, and even at the end of a fairly dry summer, it filled with water quicker than I could fill it with concrete. I'll assume you are in England. I am not up to speed with the English regs, only the Scottish ones. Up here, any infiltration system and indeed the treatment plant itself has to be 10 metres away from a watercourse. I would say that rules out the triangle of land next to the existing building. You would be looking at "land" further to the bottom of that picture to find an area of land that is >10 metres from any water to install an infiltration system. I really think your best bet (whatever treatment system you use) would be an above ground disposal like the filter mound or puraflow system. I can go into more details if you want to. I had a long thread running on the old place while I looked at different solutions, and learned a lot of stuff I never actually needed to put into practice. Do those "watercoures" flow? would you get permission to discharge into them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 Another pic to give you a better idea. The area is in the Cotswolds it's a system of gravel pits that where dug in the late 40s, we own the lake immediately in front of the cabin, this lake is aprox 7 acres in size we have 2 other lakes on site, the build plot is aprox 1 third of an acre, I don't see a problem finding a space that is 10m from water but it will probably mean having to put it under the car park. I will get the hydrology guy on it, we have had a full topo survey done and we actually sit at 88m above sea level, the lake surface is aprox 600mm below ground level and the soil is 200mm topsoil and then gravel. The lake fluctuates by about 100 mm in the course of the year and has an outlet into a small stream at its furthest point from the house site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Do you only own the bit of land you have encircled or any of the land further "south" (assuming north up) Being on gravel, you will have a good infiltration rate so the soakaway area shouldn't need to be too big. The problem is the infiltration field needs to be above the water table at it's highest seasonal level. That may rule out an underground infiltration filed. Even if a shallow infiltration field was allowed, you would probably need a treatment plant with a pumped output, as just about all of them will have an invert depth of more than 600mm (mine is closer to 900mm) At the end of the day, it's building control who say what you can do. I think you need to talk to them and see if they are happy with a shallow underground infiltration field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 I know that area well, and have stayed in a cabin nearby, right on a lakeside. That had a pumped air treatment plant discharging into the lake. I know the owner reasonably well and can ask what problems he had sorting out the treatment plants he has discharging into the same lake, if you like (he has 7 or 8 cabins around the same lake). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pulhamdown Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Hi. I'd just like to put the other side of the story with a Biorock treatment plant. We installed one in our newbuild nearly four years ago, and have had no problems whatsoever. The only maintenance has been to remove and clean the filter every six months. A really simple operation. Just pull up the filter, on the end of a long piece of rope, jet wash it, and replace. I would certainly have another one if I was to build again. Although, we're so pleased with this house, that I think that's very unlikely! Colin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 3 hours ago, JSHarris said: I know that area well, and have stayed in a cabin nearby, right on a lakeside. That had a pumped air treatment plant discharging into the lake. I know the owner reasonably well and can ask what problems he had sorting out the treatment plants he has discharging into the same lake, if you like (he has 7 or 8 cabins around the same lake). Anthony Edmonson. By any chance. If so we are just over the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 This is the basic outline. We have just over 11 acres, but 8.5 of that is water ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 I like Jeremy's idea of discharging into the lake, if you can get permission for that. It would solve a whole host of problems and be a simple reliable solution. If doing that, I would install an air blower type treatment plant. When I was researching for mine a couple of years ago now (so others may have come to the market since) I found the three best ones were the Vortex, the Biopure and the one I fitted, the Conder. These all had very similar levels of cleanliness of the effluent and were way ahead of any others that I found at the time. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 (edited) 14 hours ago, Russell griffiths said: Anthony Edmonson. By any chance. If so we are just over the road. Yes, Anthony, I guessed you were just over the road from the photo. It's amazing how all those thousands of trees he's planted have established into such a mature woodland over the past 20-odd years. His treatment plants are all pump-aerated ones that I'm pretty sure discharge to the lake, and don't seem to cause any harm because there are a lot of fish doing pretty well over there. He also heats at least some of the cabins with water-source heat pumps, drawing heat from the lake. Edited February 23, 2017 by JSHarris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 24, 2017 Author Share Posted February 24, 2017 I will pop over and see Anthony and see what he is using, we have also thought about heating from ground source in the lake as our other neighbor has done, but not sure yet as he had to install 800mof pipe which took up a large area of lake bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 (edited) The heat collector mats that Anthony laid in the lake don't seem to be massive, but they do cool the lake down. We stayed in one of the smaller cabins (Monty's Retreat) over New Year a few years ago, during some very cold weather, and the lake froze where the heat collector mat was a day earlier than the rest of the lake froze. I'd definitely not go for the heat pumps Anthony's used, as they really are very noisy. He's had to relocate the one in the cabin we stayed in I think, to reduce the noise. I have a feeling that the treatment plants may be Vortex units, but I could be wrong. Edited February 24, 2017 by JSHarris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 24, 2017 Author Share Posted February 24, 2017 Ooh er. Never heard of a heat collector mat. Our other neighbor has 4 pipes in 200 m loops, I'm starting to look into your heating system @JSHarris at the moment. Still loads of research needed. I may start a new topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 (edited) The pond mats I've seen have been either coils of pipe tied to a stainless frame, weighted down with concrete blocks, or ladder-like affairs made of polyprop pipe, rather like giant towel rails. Whether it makes financial sense to use a water-source heat pump is a bit debatable, though, as they are expensive to install and need periodic replacement of a lot of pretty expensive special, non-toxic, antifreeze. The antifreeze also reduces the collector efficiency by around 20%, as no antifreeze is as good as water in terms of either thermal conductivity of heat capacity. You may well find that an ASHP will be a fraction of the cost to install and have lower overall running costs. Edited February 24, 2017 by JSHarris Two typos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted February 24, 2017 Author Share Posted February 24, 2017 You're an absolute font of knowledge @JSHarris ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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