Our 7 houses need a new rainwater drain so the roof water doesnt flood the septic tank.
At first I though having a soakaway near my raspberries would add more water to the plants.
But maybe digging the hole, (and the resulting water making new underground drainage) would mean that in drought conditions the garden would get drier than if i didnt have this hole.
Should the soakaway be near the fruit plants or as far away as is possible?
George
You have seven houses all draining their roof water into the septic tank? There's bad design for you!
I think you're over-analysing the situation. I doubt very much if it would make a lot of difference to the remainder of the garden where you put the hole. You've got to have the hole somewhere, so put it where the water might do some good, near the raspberries if that's your preference. The rest of the garden won't suffer.
Or even connect it to the pipe coming from the septic tank to the existing drainage field, which is where the water always went, but this time after the septic tank not before it, so that it doesn't flood the tank.
This situation sounds awfully familiar to me after having once lived for many years in a 200-yesr-old house in the Fens. I suspect each house has its own septic tank rather than a communal one but the high water table on such low lying land as we had and the requirement not to pollute the nearby waterways with effluent made it a bugger of a problem to sort out. Erme -you're not in my old house on the Norfolk Cambridge borders, by any chance?
I think the question might be more for Gardeners' Question Time than uk.d-i-y but whoever answers it will probably need to know more about the type of soil and the height of the water table before they can help.
Nick
New laws about septic tanks come into full force on January 1st 2020, none of us can sell our houses until its all fixed.
rainwater shouldn't go to the septic tank ....
should go to the herringbone outfall from the septic tank ....
From what you're saying, I get the impression that the rainwater and the sewage from each property are combined _at_each_property_, and there's a single drainage pipe connecting all seven properties, that then discharges into a single septic tank. In which case my suggestion of connecting the rainwater pipe into the drainage field below/after the septic tank isn't going to work, unless each property separates the rainwater from the sewage, and there are two separate pipes serving all seven properties, one for rainwater, the other for sewage.
How old is the system, and does it drain into a purpose-constructed drainage field, or into a watercourse? If the latter, is it possible/practical to install a drainage field?
I assume you're familiar with the regulations, and you're not just relying on somebody else's say-so as to what's needed.
Yes Jim, we are diverting the rainwater from the septic tanks.
My question is would a soakaway in the garden help the plants or dry them out more in drought conditions?
Or put the soakaway outside the garden in the field
[george]
So it's one septic tank per house then? In which case, like Jim and I both said, connect you rainwater discharge directly to the drainage field of the septic tank, bypassing the tank itself. No need for a separate soakaway; no need to worry about what will happen to the rest of the garden; the rainwater will end up where it always did, just not by way of the septic tank.
yes it will keep the outlet nice and diluted .....
If we are still interested in the plants I still think we need to know what sort of soil you have and how far down you have to go before you reach the water table. Back in Outwell it was only about two feet down and it affected everything you wanted to do.
Nick
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