Treatment plant f*cked

[BigYin]

Hi all. I’m brand new and need help. 
I bought a self build (1 of 2) with a shared treatment plant (marsh 12 person with linear air pump). 
The guy who built both houses sold the second and moved away. 
Turns out the treatment plant has been installed incorrectly. It constantly floods and the media balls get pushed out the top, the air pump is broken(water ingress), the electrical supply is via a normal rubber cable (not swa) so shorts out.

The plant is connected to rainwater drainage and a soak away, which is 20/25 years old and raw sewage is running out the field onto a road. 
There have been complaints, after first one I got the pump working but with the rain this summer the plant flooded again, the pump is wrecked and the supply cable is ruined and needs replaced. It’s not even in conduit, just buried under the garden. 
I have been trying to fix this for nearly 2 years. Everyone who comes to look gives me a different answer. 
1. you need to redo everything. £25k. 

2. I’m not touching that. 

3. you need a mechanical tank, those blowers are shite. 
4. I’ll sell you parts and you can do it yourself. £1.5k

5. I can fix it but it’ll cost you for my visit. 
6. marsh? They’re rubbish, you want a klargester. 

How do I resolve this! 

Edited September 15 by BigYin

[ProDave]

You can buy a complete air blower pump for not a huge amount, this one seems common in treatment plants https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/296023440964

 

A new SWA cable will sort out your electrical woes, even laid on the surface until you can bury it.

 

BUT until you solve the drainage field issue, it will continue to flood, and when it floods is when the raw sewage can float over the normal weir separating input and output.  That is going to cost you money as you basically have to dig up a large area of land and re lay a proper drainage field separate to rainwater soakaway.

 

Sorry to say you are picking up the fallout from the original builder that did not do it properly.  

 

It there a watercourse nearby?  If there is seeking permission to discharge to that would be a much better solution.

 

The people advising to change for a mechanical treatment plant are simply not understanding that the fundamental problem you have is a drainage field that cannot cope so it floods.  Changing for a mechanical tank (not recommended) would only solve your problem if the drainage field was re laid properly as well.

 

How old is the house?  Did it come with any form of 10 year warranty?  Is there a legal agreement to force the other house to share costs?

[joe90]

@ProDave is right, new cable, new pump and new drainage field.

[FarmerN]

Check that only foul drainage is getting into system, not clean water from roof and paving as well, otherwise as above.

,

[saveasteading]

Repearing some of @ProDave 

1a) Abandoning the old and doing all new, about £7k.  Disposing of the old is another matter.

1b) sorting the elec supply and pump, not too expensive but the soakaway is another matter.

2. Sensiblepeople. Perhaps they can be persuaded.

3. See other discussions on BH. Air is far preferable to mechanical.

4. Not all. The drainage has to be sorted.

5. What is the problem with this?

6. I would never use mechanical, only air. Have used Marsh 3 times and will again. Others are available.

Shows you are talking to non experts.

 

Tell us more. Do you have space? Is there a slope?

Could your rainwater go somewhere else?

A sketch would be great.

Is your neighbour being cooperative.

 

When was it built? The builder may still be liable for incompetence to this degree.

 

[nod]

If you do the Inevitable and replace 

Dont share Do two separate TPs 

Shared is a nightmare 

 

I so the title and chuckled I’ve a TP to replace for a neighbor 8k He’s still clinging to the hope that he can simply upgrade I said right I’ve a friend who has been installing TPs for over 40 years 

I’ll get him down He looked at the inlet outlet Turned to him and said It’s Fu**ed Got in his pickup and went 

[Mr Punter]

If there is a warranty try the warranty company.

[scottishjohn]

5 hours ago, BigYin said:

I bought a self build (1 of 2) with a shared treatment plant (marsh 12 person with linear air pump).

fit a new system and do it on your own gorund 

there is obviously no legal agreement on who pays for upkeep and repairs --big mistake 

[Alan Ambrose]

Sounds a newish property? Fix it all as above, document everything, then set about reclaiming the money from the builder. If you can find him, that is, you can send him a warning letter up front.

[saveasteading]

4 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

then set about reclaiming the money from the builder. If you can find him, 

First you must if there is a legal case.

Is there a contract, and what does it say?

If no formal contract then maybe in common law, but that needs a lawyer. It has to be one with construction industry skills. They may give you a half hour free. 

Then you give the builder the opportunity to remedy the situation.

That will all take up a month. 

 

If you just start doing the work you will not get recompense.

 

 

[scottishjohn]

17 hours ago, saveasteading said:

a) Abandoning the old and doing all new, about £7k.  Disposing of the old is another matter.

it is unlikely that it is not repairable --so I bet once its out --assuming its not wraped inconcrete 

 

another self builder will take it away and repair it with new pump and media balls --after a suitable power washing out  by a septic tank emptying company

 

 it sounds very retrivable once the drainfield is sorted  

 

but i would not want to share septic system with another house if at all possible--thye could be flushing anything down it and causing problems 

[jack]

22 hours ago, BigYin said:

How do I resolve this! 

Welcome to BuildHub. Sounds like an unpleasant position to be in.

First thing I'd do is provide some more information. I don't know much about them, but at a guess, that would include:

• a plan of the site (locations of house, digester, outlet, and connections between them)
• any information you have about levels (particularly where the unit is supposed to drain)
• any photos you think might be useful

Lots of people on here have experience installing/maintaining these units and I'm sure some of them will be able to help you get this sorted as cheaply as possible once they have the info they need.

[saveasteading]

That's right. between us there is a solution.

[ToughButterCup]

In haste:

• Forget the past
• Find another suitable patch to bury your own treatment plant
• Read the General Binding Rules
• Follow them to the letter
• Identify somewhere safe to discharge the treated liquor (General Binding Rules)
• Buy a digester
• Bury it : foul drainage and power as well (SWA electric cable only)
• Connect it all up
• Test it AND ONLY THEN
• Disconnect the other

Flushed with your own success, sit and smile.

[saveasteading]

2 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

Follow them to the letter

I find the letters (and numbers) to not all be in the right order re the soakaway size but....but read anyway......and most seem to be approved smaller than ' required'.

 

The best news is that it will be all yours and half the size.

 

A sketch plan will set things moving. 

[ToughButterCup]

15 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

.......and most seem to be approved smaller than ' required'.  The best news is that it will be all yours and half the size.  A sketch plan will set things moving. 

 

Exactly

[ProDave]

Replace with your own system assumes you have enough land to do that.  Often a shared system is because you don't, especially if they have bodged the soakaway.

 

I am hoping @BigYin will come back and tell us more please.

[crooksey]

On 15/09/2024 at 13:33, BigYin said:

Hi all. I’m brand new and need help. 

How do I resolve this.....

 5. I can fix it but it’ll cost you for my visit. 

No one likes fixing other peoples problems, especially when its dealing with other peoples s***, so sadly it won't be cheap.

 

2 options, pay the money to a reputable firm and resolve it quickly and easily (but expensive, or option 2, do it yourself). If summer rain caused you a problem, got knows what the winter will bring.

 

Get tank fixed, get drainage field sorted, or pump to ditch etc.

 

There is no silver bullet, as you have witnessed installing these plants is no easy task, there are lots of variables. Unless you are very competent and have had drainage field tested and sized correctly, they will cause you problems. My advice would be to sort before November when the rain and winter water table starts making it troublesome to do anything until the spring. 

 

Best advice I would give, would be to call the company that empty your plant and ask for contractor recommendations (they may even offer services themselves) 

[joe90]

@BigYin unless I missed it you don’t say on who,s land the treatment plant is?, hopefully it’s not on your land so you could install your own and leave next door with the problem.

[saveasteading]

In case it helps..

Our steading project has 100m or so of waste pipe to the treatment tank, from 2 directions. 

The groundworker, supposedly experienced, couldn't do slope control, but we were sacking him anyway.

My son in law was rightly nervous about installing it all properly, and didn't seem to have confidence in my confidence. I had to be there for the drain runs.

One day into it, my management and instruction was no longer required and I was moved to backfilling and away from the clever stuff.  i.e. Once understood it is very diy-able.  except for the machine work.

Getting the slopes right and pipes meeting each other is the scary bit but advice can follow, on here.

The hole for the tank is wide and deep and needs an excavator. It can then lift the tank in. Have you got access?

The tank itself can be offloaded by the driver and you. Only mechanical tanks are heavy.

 

You need a percolation test...read about it in Document H or in many websites. I suggest you do a preliminary one at ground level ASAP. You, a spade, a bucket, a watch and a tape. Quite fun.

 

[BigYin]

Hi, Everyone; thank you for the replies! 

I will try to answer all the questions.

 

The treatment plant sits in a field behind both houses, owned by a neighbour. Drainage from both houses flows down a shared access road into the field to the plant inlet. 

 

The soakaway is nothing more than a 20-year-old rubble drain; it’s end of life. It is also shared among four houses, two using the treatment plant and two others with individual septic tanks. 

 

The effluent exits the plant outflow through an 8-inch polypipe and down to the soakaway. The soakaway drains across the entrance to another field, then down a drainage ditch along the road to a wee burn at the bottom of the hill. This is the agreed route with SEPA.

 

The house is self-built by the original owner, it had a 7-year architect certificate which has expired. The house was completed in 2017 and is only 7.5 years old.

 

There is no factoring or agreement for shared maintenance of the plant between the two houses or all four for the drainage field. All the neighbours are friendly, and we have been discussing it together, but we’ve not got to the money aspect, so communication may break down.

 

Marsh has been excellent. 3 visits to the site, lots of helpful advice. The plant has made it into the hall of shame and is used as an example of how not to do it!

 

Fitting our own is an option, however, that leaves my neighbour literally “in the shit” and I would rather resolve together. This would also necessitate redoing all the civils under the access road and redirecting them, which may not be a viable option due to the location of a garage, underground gas tank and the house!

 

I am in contact with the guy who built it and I know his new address, however, he built the houses using a “building company” which was c/o his families other business. I am discussing this with my lawyer presently.

 

Paying for someone to visit is not an issue. However, others have come and gone, and they won’t even return my calls. I guess I lack confidence in the supposed “experts” who give their opinions rather than resolutions.

 

I have been trying to resolve this since Jan 2023, when I first contacted SEPA for help. Turns out I have more info than them since they were hacked and lost loads of documents. I was looking for the percolation test results, but nobody has them.

 

We have had the tank emptied several times since April this year to reduce the smell and outflow.

 

I think that's everything. Sketch attached. 

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:49 by BigYin
Clarifying

[saveasteading]

I'd hazard that sharing with your neighbour will work, but you should not share that final soakaway with the other people.

Perhaps that means that your outfall must bypass the soakaway and join the pipe to the burn, or maybe the bco will accept a new, small soakaway or French drains.

The 8" pipe is unnecessarily huge and probably stuff the builder had found.

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, BigYin said:

...

The treatment plant sits in a field behind both houses, owned by a neighbour.

...

 

Here Be Dragons (potentially).

 

I sincerely hope my warning is unnecessary. The subject of  SoftAndSmellyStuff in conjunction with joint ownership or responsibility has always been tricky for us. And in this case the tank is not on your land. 

 

A lot needs to be unraveled here. And that may in part explain the lack of interest by the companies you have contacted. Their approach to you might be more positive if you were able to say to them....Put this particular tank in that particular place and connect up the piping.

[ProDave]

3 hours ago, BigYin said:

The treatment plant sits in a field behind both houses, owned by a neighbour. Drainage from both houses flows down a shared access road into the field to the plant inlet. 

 

The soakaway is nothing more than a 20-year-old rubble drain; it’s end of life. It is also shared among four houses, two using the treatment plant and two others with individual septic tanks. 

 

The effluent exits the plant outflow through an 8-inch polypipe and down to the soakaway. The soakaway drains across the entrance to another field, then down a drainage ditch along the road to a wee burn at the bottom of the hill. This is the agreed route with SEPA.

 

Two points here.  The 2 houses feeding this with septic tanks should not do that any more.  But sadly SEPA don't seem to care about old non compliant systems.

 

So on the face of it you have a soakaway and rubble drain acting as a partial soakaway and ending up in a burn.  So in theory this should never back up to the point of flooding the treatment plant.  So something is wrong with the levels when it was installed that is causing the plant to flood, or something is blocked.  THAT is what you need to concentrate on finding, what is the weak link in this that is making it possible to back up.  Probably an unpleasant job of paddling about in wellies next time it does back up to work out where the problem is.

 

It surely should not be hard to sort out when you have found it.  With an eventual destination of the burn, it should not normally back up.

[dpmiller]

have the various pipes been CCTV surveyed? That would be a good start.