I noticed a cottage for sale which has no septic tank and no mains. As it stands at the moment it's not possible to get a mortgage on the cottage due to this.
Apparently the site is too small for a septic tank to be placed in the garden, as the garden is too small and the tank has to be placed a certain distance from the house.
I was wondering if anyone knew any alternatives to septic tanks which might be permitted to be placed in a garden.
I think you are going to have to place it at least 15m from any building.
If you can't manage this on your site maybe you could arrange with a neighbour that you pay for a nice modern system (like a Klargester) big enough for 2 houses to be installed on thier property replacing thier existing septic tank - you may be able to pursuade them that it would be less problematic for them (hopefully one of the neighbours has a troublesome tank at the moment and will jump at the offer).
P.S. I expect someone like "BuildStore" would give you a mortgage on the property as it stands.
See if you can install a Klargester Biodisc. You should have no problem getting this past the Environment Agency if an installation is feasible. The active aerobic process needs less space than some other solutions. However, you might struggle to get approval within 15m of the house. You will also need enough land for a soakaway, or a permit to discharge into a nearby watercourse.
Alternatively, a combined system with nearby houses might be possible if neighbourly goodwill is in abundance and someone can provide land for the installation. You can get Biodisc systems that are suitable for large numbers of houses (up to 75 people) and it might be attractive to your neighbours if they're on a cess-pit that needs constant emptying, or have an old style anaerobic septic tank that doesn't work in this day and age of soaps and bleaches.
If the septic tank, or suitable alternative, wasn't situated on the land of the house I don't think I'd buy it in case it put off potential purchasers when I decided to sell on in the future.
I've heard about biomass (is that the correct word?) systems on tv in the past.
I wonder if this has to be situated a certain distance from the house also...?
I have a packaged sewage treatment works. It is sited "too close" to the house, but with the approval of the BCO, as there was no other place to put it that was downhill from the house, and within half a mile - we live on a cliff top.
either 4m or 6m, we only used 1 bit of underground soil pipe from the house to the unit, its somewhat neerer the old granry / pigsty.
Here are some pictures (later down the page)
formatting link
recommends the kargester, whih IMHO is an expensive thing. Mine was 3K, we fitted the tank (cost less than 1K), did all the groundworks etc, the people that made it (APCO), then come and check it all out, and fit the gubbins in the middle. You can use any tank you like, I got mine from APCO.
We backfilled with a dry mix concrete.
We pump out every year.
We got a consent to discharge, directly from the tank, via 250m of pipe into the river in the pictures. The people of chester & birkenhead then pump the water out the river & drink it.
Also you may remember the grand designs, white cube on the coast, they got their sewage system in the garden, just uder a sea wall, so that a second example of the 15m being a bendable guidline rather than a rock solid rule.
One of the previous posts have it spelt right :- Klargester Biodisc
There are others, Hepworth did one, at a mindbloing price, I could not see the different between that and the APCO.
The two main types are the "pumped air bubble through", which has all the moving parts (an air pump) outside the tank, and a disc, which sits half in the "mix" and turns lifting some of the mix out, into the air (all inside the machine)
If you want to discharge into a river, you need to be 100% certain the machine will clean the muck to a sufficient level. We are also very carefull never to put paints and the like down the drains.
If you are using a secondary treatment, read beds or soakaway, you can go for a simple seperator system. I guess you don't have space for this.
I got the EA people out to my place, and they basicly told me what to do, for free. I found a counsulant to advise me, who wanted 500 quid just to turn up, and then he would price the work he needed to do - I didn't use him.
One other thing to do, is to find a groundwork contrator, thats a small local company, who will have done many of these type of things. My guy charged an hour rate, and then did a guarentee of "done in 5 days else extra is free", it was done in less than 2.
Final note, as you are buying a place, you need consent from the current owner that you can approach the EA. The current arrangment is probably not completly legal. Once this is a know fact, it has to be discolsed. If the EA decide to take action - troubble could occour - its called Cover Your Arse in my line of work.
You need to get all the legalities sorted before you buy. The actual plant can be quite close to the house but the soakaway, assuming there is to be one, needs to be more distant. One will be needed unless their is somewhere else that the discharge can be made.Unless you can get formal written agreement from a neighbouring landowner for this then forget it. This link shows the possible consequenses if you get it wrong
My septic tank is in my garden and is shared by the other half of my "semi detached block". The outflow goes into a field which adjoins the garden. There are legal agreements covering joint use of the tank plus permission for my outfall to go into someone elses field. I had doubts at first but my solicitor put my mind at rest.
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