The outlet from the second chamber (the 'liquids' chamber) of my septic tank takes an age to empty into my soakaway, causing obvious problems further upstream if a large quantity of water is suddenly dumped into the system (from an emptied bath for example). It's been like this for years but is getting noticeably worse.
Who/what industry 'body' would I call in to evaluate what needs to be done and, only if absolutely necessary, re-build or install a new soakaway?
Thanks
mmm can of worms waiting there methinks - local waste contractor/tank emptier would be my first choice? ... "unofficial" as poss to start with... especially now all hell's officialdom is justifying their existence....
PS baths into septic tanks??? should go to shecondary shoakaway shurely?
Cheers JimK
Can of worms? Why?
Afraid that you're puzzling me. :-)
What is officialdom doing/not doing?
I'm in Wales if that helps/hinders.
All of my in-house water drainage appears to go into the septic tank, no doubt about it. But now that you mention it I wish it didn't!
and, only if absolutely necessary, re-build or install a new
Basically you know the answer. Your soakaway is clogged, or the pipe going to it is.
So dig it up and clean it.
They only last about 50 years.
Okay, so given that there's not a hope in hell of me personally digging it up and cleaning it, who do I employ to do the job properly?
Are there companies which can examine the pipework, perhaps bunging something down the pipe with a camera attached to inspect it?
Potentially..... Surveying the current arrangement, deeming it not to meet one or another regulation, and then serving a legal notice on you requiring a £20k replacement/upgrade.
amen ;>O yellow pages - local septic tank emptying company (maybe you had them already for a periodic-ahem-yearly tank empty?)
JimK
Ugh - ouch!
So which 'bodies' do I need to AVOID in order to ensure that I don't end up with any exhorbitant costs?
I should say that my soakaway is currently located in the small field adjoining my bungalow - the field is also owned by me.
The field does NOT drain into any waterways, etc.
The septic tank and soakaway were installed by the previous owner, ie some years before I bought the property.
Just out of interest, what is the average cost of installing a soakaway these days? Just one for a two bedroom bungalow.
I do empty the tank yearly, even though some say it's not necessary.
So if I want to get the tank, pipework to soakaway and potentially the soakaway itself inspected, who do I ask who will NOT end up reporting me IF there are legal issues?
As far as I'm aware the existing system is 100% legal and above board, but as it was installed before I bought the property I cannot of course be 100% certain. So JUST IN CASE it isn't, I need to know which 'bodies' I should avoid. :-)
Especially if your soakaway(s) is/are liable to be polluting the groundwater.
I seriously doubt it would be that much. Presuming your pipes to the soakaway are OK, you'd just need a tank that can be pumped out regularly and the installation cost. I have a feeling it would be £3-4k depending how easy your installation would be. I don't think you could have the new tank dropped into the old hole, so there would be some work needed to excavate a new home for it, nearby.
Though there would be costs to have the tank empried every few months, maybe £150 a time.
yebbut what you describe is a change to a simple cesspit..... if you were going to replace the old septic with a new working septic system (with leach fields etc) then costs would be more as more work....
cheers JimK
A complete biodisc type tank installed is around 7k max. Just replacing a soakaway will be less than that.
If the EA get involved I don't think you are allowed to fit a simple anerobic tank these days they have to be the aerobic digester type. Somewhat more costly... 20k would be OTT though. Expect some change from 10k.
That's what we had done. Old small bottle tank hoiked out hole made a bit bigger and larger bottle tank plonked in.
months,
A septic tank needs emptying when it's full, which could be quite frequently, a septic tank has no out flow.
An anerobic or aerobic digester does have an out flow and soak away, they need emptying far less often. how often seems to be very open to debate. B-)
No. Bathwater, shower water, wash hand basins, washing machines all produce effluent water that is septic and will clog up a soakaway. It needs anaerobic digestion in a septic tank before it is allowed to percolate into the soil.
I suspect an inadequate septic tank/soakaway combination and that to get it right will need a new installation. It's probable that the reason that the soakaway is blocked is because the retention time in the septic tank is inadequate and/or someone has been over-using bleach, the dishwasher or other septic tank poisoning houshold cleaning chemicals.
Our setup is:
White Water (gutters) -> Sand Trap -> Storage Tank -> Soakaway
Grey water (bath etc) -> Grease Trap | V Black water (Lavatories) -> septic tank -> Anaerobic digester | V Soakaway
A useless piece of techno-crap that no one needs. Great if you like to spend all weekend fumbling in sewage to do repairs.
A two or three chamber septic tank or a very large Klargester onion is all that is needed, particularly if one has a field to use as a soakaway.
I suspect that the OP's system is simply too small, particularly the soakaway and I wouldn't be surprised if the OP has treated a septic tank as if it were town mains drainage and has put lots of cleaning chemicals into it.
That's a cesspit and it costs more to operate one of those than the charge made for waste water disposal by the local water company. A properly installed septic tank costs nothing to run.
I've had ours pumped out once in twenty years and that was a bad mistake since it took the septic tank two years to recover from the insult.
Properly designed a septic tank pretty much looks after itself if one is careful about what goes into it.
Not sure they are that unreliable but still not a "passive" system like an anerobic septic tank. How much power does the compressor take, 50W? That's 1.2kWHrs/day or 438kWHrs/year.
How does one of these things react if you get a power cut? I guess a few hours isn't a problem but when a big storm happens people in rural areas can be off the mains for days. Guess where these things tend to be installed...
Or the soakaway is just clogged or blocked up after being in use for many years. If a bath full of water is enough to make the soakway back up, it's no longer working as a soakaway...
Thanks for the word "cesspit" in one of your other posts, I couldn't remember that earlier.
A septic tank does have an outlet. You're thinking of a cesspool.
I heard stories that my grandad, in the last war, used to have to empty one hole in the ground under the outside bog into another hole in the ground with a bucket and rope periodically.
What's the logic there? Was the first one allowing partial digestion and the second one acting as a soakaway? Don't suppose that would be allowed now!
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