What do I need to know about owning and maintaining a septic tank?

I'm not sure I know much more, but we had a passive Klargester in the last house (where we lived for over 20 years) and have a package treatment plant (a Klargester biodisk) in this one.

Don't have one of those.

I've been rinsing the coffee pot into our private drains for over

20 years (admittedly I scrape the bulk of the grounds into the bin first).

No grease, oil, fat or anything similar. Indeed, this is a good rule of thumb;

Those of us with septic tanks, Would like to give a word of thanks, For putting nothing in the pot, That isn't guaranteed to rot. Kleenex is bad, cigarettes too, Feminine products are taboo, No hair combings please - use the basket. There's a very good reason why we ask it. With your kind cooperation We'll keep our tank in operation!

Don't put anything down the drains that hasn't been through a human being, other than toilet paper.

We get our desludged annually.

Neither of our systems have a drainage field, so I can't say. They both drain into ditches in the adjacent fields. I planted reeds in the ditch in the last house, and will likely do the same here.

There has been a lot of fuss (and misinformation) going round about the requirement to register systems with the EA. You might want to start reading here;

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Reply to
Huge
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Bleach is fine in small quantities.

Reply to
Huge

We lived with a Klargister septic tank for 28 years. Despite what others say we put everything down the drain that would go down if we were on main drains and never had a problem. However we did have it emptied every two years.

Our neighbour didn't and theirs overfilled with solids so when they did have it emptied the top compartment collapsed under the weight resulting in an expensive bill to have it replaced.

Furthermore depending on where you are many are now having to be replaced with expensive powered processing systems due to ground water contamination. This includes the one at our old house. The current owners tell me it cost £12k plus!

Mike

Reply to
Muddymike

This may have been mentioned earlier in the thread, but is is too long to plough though. I now use Muck Munchers, flush these down the toilet once a month and there are no smells, also the tank rarely needs emptying. My parents house also had an old fashioned septic tank, this dis not get emptied for the duration of the second world war, it worked fine for the duration, ponged a bit at times though!

Reply to
Broadback

Thanks for the info. Sadly I'm not going ahead with the purchase because of a bad structural survey, but the info will be useful in the future.

Reply to
nospam

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