Picking a treatment plant for my new build

[Roger440]

On 30/04/2017 at 11:14, Simplysimon said:

@roger440

i had thought of doing this, however, if you have no control as to whether the other house uses bleach/anti bac fluids, the treatment plant ends up stuffed so going with one plant one house

Sadly, i don have an option. Currently on a shared septic tank, which needs to be replaced.

[Roger440]

On 4/28/2017 at 22:30, PeterW said:

Dead easy to learn to drive them - even @recoveringacademic has his own ....!

Used them a few times already. Adequate would describe my competence.

 

Just finished today filling in the pond.

[SteamyTea]

I have known two people that have worked for Klargester.  Being polite, they were both slapdash in their attitude to quality.

[dpmiller]

First post...

been researching for our project here in NI and am pretty set on the Rewatec Solido Smart. Local distributor seems amenable to deal with, offering delivery and commissioning (and addon pump kit at reasonable cost if required) so I wondered if any of you chaps have any experiece of it or similar SBR units?

The numbers certainly look good,  plenty good enough for discharge into our field drain per the NIEA.

[Jeremy Harris]

Welcome.

 

I've never heard of this company, but the aeration treatment system is a common one, and some of the stuff in their video is a bit misleading, as there are many other plants that fit the air pump in a chamber inside the unit (our BioPure does, for example), and few that run compressed air lines across the ground as they illustrate, or that have the pump in an indoor wall mounted enclosure, like the one they show (I've never seen one like that).  They've given timed/pulsed aeration a new name, but again other plants do the same, in order to reduce pump power, and pretty much any pumped system can have a timer added to turn the air on and off in a cycle, in order to reduce power consumption.  Most units with continuous run pumps over-aerate, to be on the safe side and met their maximum person rating, so the aeration can be safely reduced and still give good treatment. 

 

I'd suggest having a look around at some of the other units around, and comparing the price and performance, some mentioned ihere, perhaps:

There are also some other posts here on treatment plants, comparing their relative merits, prices, etc, and a search will probably bring up some additional info.

 

I'd also add that having the air pump in a chamber in the tank is a bit of a nuisance, I've moved ours out of that chamber and into a stone chamber alongside the drive, as you need to get at the pump, to replace/clean the air filter at least annually and replace the diaphragms every couple of years, and lifting the lid on the treatment plant and leaning in to the equipment chamber is neither easy nor pleasant.  There's also a very slight hum when the air pump is on, even with the pump in a chamber in the tank, we found.  Not enough to be a nuisance, but just about audible on a quiet night, when standing near the unit.  Putting the air pump inside a stone chamber has reduced the noise, as it's lost the slight resonance from being in a fibreglass box inside the hollow space at the top of the unit's main chamber.  You also really need an alarm, for pump failure, which means adding something that can be seen and heard when there's a problem, and that's better placed away from the unit, where it's easier to see and hear.  Our unit was supplied with a battery-backed alarm that sits inside the equipment chamber, and flashes a red light on top of the unit, and make a gentle beep, if air pressure is lost (which is usually either a pump diaphragm failure or a power loss to the pump).

 

 

Edited May 21, 2017 by JSHarris

[Guest Alphonsox]

Hi and welcome,

We're nearing completion on a build in NI. When we went through the process of selecting a treatment plant we ended up choosing a Kingspan Bioficient

https://www.kingspanenviro.com/klargester/bioficient. Pretty much the same type of thing with the advantage of an external pump system. In my view is definitely worth separating the electo-mechanical stuff from the treatment and storage.

[dpmiller]

Interesting, and thanks for the welcome all. We're currently at contract on the land so I'll post something about the project once those formalities complete. Still plenty to research, plan, and decide!

My background is in industrial and lab systems so I like the configurability of the Solido controller. It's a concrete-free install too. I take on board tho the comments about blower location- might have a chat with the rep about moving the "technology box" or even just the compressor into the garage as that's where the controller will be

[Jeremy Harris]

There's little technology in the blower.  All the aeration treatment units I've looked at use fish pond air blowers, usually Japanese made and originally designed for use with Koi ponds.  The process is pretty simple.  The treatment plants have a settling area, plus an active aeration area, with a perforated air pipe that blows low pressure air out as a stream of fine bubbles at the bottom of the tank.  These bubbles to two things, they increase the oxygen content of the contents, which encourages aerobic bacteria to breed and feed on the effluent, and the bubbles lift material from the base of the unit and cause internal circulation, which reduces the amount of undigested solid matter.

 

Some treatment plants are better at lifting solids and circulating them than others, I believe.  In general, I suspect that the conical tanks are probably more effective at lifting and digesting sludge than the flat bottom tanks.  The main impact of this is that the conical tanks may well have an increased de-sludging interval (the manufacturer of ours suggests every two to three years, for example).

 

There seems to be a fair bit of copying of ideas going on with these things, with some models being very similar to those from other manufacturers.  As an example, our BioPure looks very similar to the Condor unit that ProDave has fitted.  I believe the cost was around the same as well, IIRC we paid around £2k for our unit, with pump and alarm system and a pumped outlet option (which increased the cost by a couple of hundred pounds).   I think it's well worth shopping around before making a decision.

 

 

 

 

[ProDave]

Whether you need concrete or not depends entirely on ground conditions and in particular the level of the water table in winter. Ours is anchored in by pouring concrete into the hole once the tank is in deep enough to encompass a retaining ring built into the bottom of the tank All manufacturers have some form of anchoring kit. Also by their nature and the physics of displacement,  a conical shaped tank would need a higher water table to make it float out than a round or flat bottomed design. Even so, I would only ever empty ours in summer when the water table is low. The risk of floatation is the greatest when you empty the contents and before you can fill it again with water.

 

The air blower in our Conder is in the top of the tank though I could see no reason to stop you mounting it remote if you wanted. It sits in it's own compartment under the big lid, that's completely encased so you are not looking down into anything nasty when servicing it. Emptying is done through a separate smaller lid that you unscrew.