Septic Tank v Sewage Treatment Plant

[Onoff]

Note dropped into neighbour.

 

SWMBO said the other day for me to "leave it as I'll make a mess"! Said "did I have any rope" she could tie it around herself and start to investigate whilst I'm at work. No wonder people die. 

 

Off to find her some rope then! ?

 

Looking like this could be the next project then, the side of the house. Always a bit of an out of sight / mind area. Like the Somme since I had to dig the path up to replace the water main. There's old 3 sided footings projecting across this area from the house. Partly removed but they laid chain link fencing in the concrete and the clay soil pipe runs through them in line with the man holes.

 

First man hole under those rubble bags centre of the picture. Used to be a clay soil coming in from the left from an outside wc.

 

 

2nd manhole, clay soil runs through it parallel to the house, from the first then on down to the cess pit.

 

 

The cess pit I think is roughly under where those yellow and white bushes meet. (Bagged rubble from the bathroom and path excavations).

 

 

 

Standing at the end of the "grass" looking a bit further in. That rectangular "pool" is about manhole cover size and rings metallic when poked with a spade.

 

 

 

 

 

[ProDave]

I would start by shoveling the "muck" off the top of what might be a manhole cover in the last picture WITHOUT standing directly on it.  If it is a manhole cover, remove it.  If it is full of brown smelly stuff, get a man in to pump it all out before you go ANY further.

 

I get the impression it is behind the house so might be a long way from the road. You might want to have a measure and warn them what length of suction hose they will need from the tanker to the manhole.

 

If that cover reveals the smelly stuff, probe it with a stick and see if it is really "the pit" or just another blocked inspection chamber on the way.

[Onoff]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

I would start by shoveling the "muck" off the top of what might be a manhole cover in the last picture WITHOUT standing directly on it.  If it is a manhole cover, remove it.  If it is full of brown smelly stuff, get a man in to pump it all out before you go ANY further.

 

I get the impression it is behind the house so might be a long way from the road. You might want to have a measure and warn them what length of suction hose they will need from the tanker to the manhole.

 

If that cover reveals the smelly stuff, probe it with a stick and see if it is really "the pit" or just another blocked inspection chamber on the way.

 

It's in front of the house to one side of the plot between house and road.

 

Just spoken to the 90 year old ex owner. Showed him the photos. Reckons there's another manhole between the 2nd and third I've found and that the one over the cess pit, which'll be number 4, is bang in the middle of it. Means I must have been standing on the edge if not over it a bit. Plank across the arse time I reckon! This all needs confirming rather than taking his word for it.

 

Might get out in a bit with the long 

tape and do a bit of a survey of where things are for future reference and length too of pump hoses. I can send to the tanker company.

Edited April 13, 2019 by Onoff

[Jeremy Harris]

As a word of warning, we had no idea where the septic tank was on the farm, as someone had concreted over the cover when the yard was resurfaced.  The septic tank was discovered when the top collapsed one night, luckily when no one, and no livestock, was in the yard.  That was a brick built affair, with lots of missing bricks that had fallen out over the years (they were all lying in the bottom).  The top was just some rusted out angle iron, with a couple of sheets of rusted out corrugated iron on top, then some pretty rubbish concrete on top of that.  It's a miracle that it hadn't collapsed before, as cars, tractors etc had been driving over it for years.

[ProDave]

56 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

As a word of warning, we had no idea where the septic tank was on the farm, 

That seems normal practice.  My BIL lives in a Welsh farmhouse, now just an 8 acre smallholding. He once said "the septic tank is over there, somewhere, nobody ever empties it and we don't even know for sure where it is"

 

As long as stuff goes away when you flush, nobody minds it appears.

[Onoff]

Arguing with SWMBO now as to how many manholes she thinks there are vs what I think!

Edited April 13, 2019 by Onoff

[richi]

About emptying septic tanks: I was always told that, so long as you don't poison it or flush things that don't biodegrade, a septic system shouldn't ever need pumping out or desludging. Discuss.

[Jeremy Harris]

12 minutes ago, richi said:

About emptying septic tanks: I was always told that, so long as you don't poison it or flush things that don't biodegrade, a septic system shouldn't ever need pumping out or desludging. Discuss.

 

All tanks and treatment plants will end up with sludge in the bottom that never gets digested, pretty much the same as the human digestive system, really.  Actively aerated treatment plants tend to generate less sludge, because they use the aeration to lift sludge up from the bottom and keep it circulating, so more of the digestible stuff can be consumed by the bacteria in the thing.

[Onoff]

14 minutes ago, richi said:

About emptying septic tanks: I was always told that, so long as you don't poison it or flush things that don't biodegrade, a septic system shouldn't ever need pumping out or desludging. Discuss.

 

Mine as understand it is a cess pit not a septic tank.

 

???

[Jeremy Harris]

5 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

Mine as understand it is a cess pit not a septic tank.

 

???

 

Cess pits have no drains, so fill up two or three times a year and need to be emptied.  A septic tank will have a couple of internal chambers, with the second chamber, downstream of the internal weir, being connected to a leach field.

[Gone West]

53 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Cess pits have no drains, so fill up two or three times a year and need to be emptied.

Around here they knock holes in the base so they don't need emptying so often.

[Stones]

On 12/04/2019 at 00:27, ProDave said:

We pay about £150 each time we have a 2500L septic tank pumped out every 24 months.

 

It's just 2 years now so will be getting the treatment plant pumped out for the first time soon, and then take guidance from the tanker driver if it was over due or could go longer next time.

 

We emptied ours after 18 months.  Tanker driver suggested two years, if not three.

[Onoff]

1953 this cess pit was apparently built I've just found out.

 

Around then then time of the original iron water main I replaced a couple of years ago.

[joe90]

On our plot, my late father in law had a cess pit in the field, quite small, and he used to empty it himself with a bucket and rope and put it on his potato growing garden!!!,!. He also drank water from his well which turned out to be surface water, not aquifer water, which had iron and copper in it (we know because we had it tested).  He lived into his nineties ?.

 

Reminds me of the joke, one gardener to another, “what do you put on your rhubarb?”, “horse muck” came the reply, first gardener said “we put custard on ours!”

[Onoff]

5 minutes ago, joe90 said:

On our plot, my late father in law had a cess pit in the field, quite small, and he used to empty it himself with a bucket and rope and put it on his potato growing garden!!!,!. He also drank water from his well which turned out to be surface water, not aquifer water, which had iron and copper in it (we know because we had it tested).  He lived into his nineties ?.

 

Reminds me of the joke, one gardener to another, “what do you put on your rhubarb?”, “horse muck” came the reply, first gardener said “we put custard on ours!”

 

My Mum used to enthuse about the rhubarb grown by an old Dutch fella up the road. One day he told her the secret to it. Every evening he'd wander up the garden and "mark his territory" so to speak! ?

 

It's apparently a way of adding certain trace minerals or something too when doing a home biogas reactor on top of 50/50 "brown to green".

[Onoff]

Can what I think is called grey water; bath / basin go into a soakaway?

 

@PeterStarck , your reed bed, the purpose of that is to "clean" the water up bit more after coming out of the treatment plant? I've the space and like the idea of that.

 

 Didn't one of the companies designing them shut up shop after a guy cutting his nearly died from some nasty infection?

 

Do I need to notify etc if installing a treatment plant? Part G maybe?

Edited April 13, 2019 by Onoff

[Cpd]

54 minutes ago, joe90 said:

He also drank water from his well which turned out to be surface water, not aquifer water, which had iron and copper in it (we know because we had it tested).  He lived into his nineties ?.

I lived in a lighthouse in Australia on and off for 4 years (up to six months a year) and the water was collected from the roof gutters and  down into a holding tank in the back garden and then pumped back up to a header tank and gravity fed into the taps. It was completely untreated and everything that lands on the roof went into the holding tanks, bird shite, possum dung, leaves etc....... it was totally untreated!  After a few years on one really hot summer I was sure I could taste something “off” in the water and organised to have it inspected we had a family living up there with a new  born and a pregnant woman...... plus 5 workers, on the day of the inspection we lifted up the manhole cover to the massive storage tank and I shone a torch in there........ I was treated to one of the worst views in my life, and trust me I have lived In some pretty rough environments........ a possum had obviously died on the roof and had eventually got washed down the pipes...... it had been in the tank for a long time..... and looked like an eight foot jellyfish that was constantly dissolving into the water supply!   They took a sample from the house and the results were off the charts ! They were beyond amazed that nobody was sick, the baby was born normal and healthy and the new born was strong ! We emptied the tanks out, got in with a jet blaster and then let them fill up as normal and carried on drinking it ! No one ever suggested a filter or UV ! Crazy times and that’s only about 7 years ago ! 

[Onoff]

Where I am an old boy around the corner in one of the last remaining "shacks" would only drink rainwater.  Even that he'd leave in jars to settle and off-gas of any impurities. In his 90s when he went. 

 

His huge, rain fed concrete water tank used for washing etc had a huge tree and it's roots growing through it. 

Edited April 13, 2019 by Onoff

[CC45]

My grandparents lived on a farm with its own water supply.  One very hot summer my uncle & I went to clean out the water tanks - all sorts in there - rat carcsses, frogs etc etc  we were drinking this unfiltered!  Still continued drinking it.  We never seemed to get ill.

 

 

[ProDave]

I have said before how in rural Australia, collecting rainwater from  your roof is normal.  MY BIL in Queensland has this, 4 big tanks that collect the rainwater from the house and barn roofs.  And It is very nice pure water.

 

In the dry season, if they run out they simply buy in a tanker full of water.

 

@Onoff If you do install a new treatment plant you will need building regulations approval.  Up here I am sure you also need planning permission, check if that is the case in England.

[Sue B]

We really need a new emoji.  A ? or a ? or for some of these a ?.

 

i feel quite queasy now!

[Gone West]

11 hours ago, Onoff said:

@PeterStarck , your reed bed, the purpose of that is to "clean" the water up bit more after coming out of the treatment plant? I've the space and like the idea of that.

Yes the idea is that certain types of water plants have a lot of root growth which are covered with bacteria that further break down any remaining effluent. It doesn't have to be reeds, in fact because the recommended reeds grow so tall I asked the suppliers if I could use different plants and for the last seven years I have used irises. Since I installed the system nine years ago the manufacturers of my system seem to have changed their installation details and tertiary treatment is no longer a requirement. When the new bungalow was built next door, a few years ago, the BCO allowed the new sewage treatment plant to discharge into the old cesspit which he said should be filled with pieces of a type of foam medium on which the bacteria grow on the surface.

[Gone West]

10 hours ago, ProDave said:

If you do install a new treatment plant you will need building regulations approval.  Up here I am sure you also need planning permission, check if that is the case in England.

I didn't need planning permission for mine but did need building regulations approval.

[canalsiderenovation]

On 14/04/2019 at 08:29, PeterStarck said:

I didn't need planning permission for mine but did need building regulations approval.

 

Same here, building regs but not PP.

 

Made some notes based on this discussion but will wait to see what happens with PP and our up and coming bat survey .... And I'm sure our architect may have some words of wisdom re building regs.

 

We are off on holidays now for some sun - it's cheaper than our heating bills!!

[joe90]

I considered a reed bed and consulted a local company but their reply was they stopped doing them as a customer died as a result of bacteria getting into a cut on his hand when he was clearing some of the reeds!!!. I have not heard of this before and still considering reeds or iris in a low boggy area around the area our treatment plant flows too.