If you have septic tank then ....

[RogerS]

...do not believe those who say 'They never need emptying'. Once upon a time, maybe, but that was before bleach, power showers and biological washing powders.

I did believe. Much to my dismay as I've just spent a week sorting out (hopefully) an overflowing tank, digestor and filter bed. It was not fun.

Gory details are here.

Motto for the day....get that tank emptied.

 

[NazNomad]

I empty mine regularly. It's quite literally, one of those sh*t jobs that needs doing.

 

[dickm]

Yes, our's needs doing but I keep putting it off!
When we lived near Milton Keynes, we had a guy called Tony Bracey who did our tank. It was worth the money just to hear his stories while the machine was sucking out the sh** .
When MK was first being built back in the early 70s, all the building sites had portaloos. Tony bought a sludge tanker off Anglian Water for £10k, and it paid for itself in under 6 months, just emptying portaloos. He was certainly still using the same lorry 20 years later! Now that's what I call a good business model!

 

[Logger]

Where we used to live, we had to have ours emptied every 3-6 months as it would not drain. Fortunately, it was shared with a neighbour and on their land so they had to rod it.

We are now renting and apparently our tank has not been emptied for 26 years. Not sure how they can go from one extreme to another! However, it means our water bill is much lower which is good.

Nick

 

[Woodchips2]

I've learned many things on this forum but the two that stand out that can damage your health and wealth are:
a) steer clear of properties not connected to mains drainage
b) don't buy a property with a thatched roof

Regards Keith

 

[graduate_owner]

Septic tanks do need to be cleaned out regularly else the 'solids' overflow into the soakaway, clogging it up and causing serious drainage issues which can be expensive to sort out. We have ours emptied annually and I feel it is £125 well spent.

K

 

[NazNomad]

steer clear of properties not connected to mains drainage

That would suggest to me that I'd need to live somewhere 'less rural'. I'd rather have a septic tank than lots of neighbours. :-D

 

[Phil Pascoe]

£125 p.a. to have a tank emptied??? With SWW you'd be luck to be charged only four times that for sewerage.

 

[blackrodd]

The balance between the number of people and tank sizes are well laid down, Some, the natural balance is excellent, waste, solids and bath and waste water, I have one in brick, 6' deep,6' long and 4' wide, built in the early 50's works well apart from the fat from the washing powder "fillers" were a problem.
We use liquid for clothes washing now which apparently has no fillers and the system works well and it.s emptied every couple of years.
Luckily I have a K'archer and jet nozzle so I can clear any build up myself.
T've fitted Klargester and Entec tanks and "onion bottles" all work very good on the same principle.
Last one I fitted was a Klargester biodisc which apparently is best of all for water discharge quality.
Regards Rodders

 

[RogerS]

steer clear of properties not connected to mains drainage

That would suggest to me that I'd need to live somewhere 'less rural'. I'd rather have a septic tank than lots of neighbours. :-D

+1

 

[Eric The Viking]

The house in which I grew up was built by a civil engineer who came down to the West Country to build the M5 and stayed. He wasn't a very good housebuilder, and older locals will tell you about the structural problems with the motorway's foundations, and its bridges in particular, as it goes across the peat.

If you know north Somerset, we lived on the south side of Brent Knoll. Half way up our steep driveway we had a spring emerging, just above the tarmac, causing a sheet of (usually) black ice in the winter. All round the hill all the springs emerge at about the same elevation. I once saw the postie's Morris Minor van slide down sideways (he used to race up the drive so had a lot of inertia when he hit the ice).

Anyway, the idiot who built the place put the tank just below that curve of the drive. It _always_ filled to the brim (and stank) by about the end of Jan, early Feb. We tried planting trees near it, to soak up the water. They died. We tried re-making the incoming pipework and inspection pit, to make it more waterproof. That didn't work either.

So we had it pumped annually, but the problem wasn't solved until the property finally got onto main drainage around 1990.

And yes, we were careful about chemicals used, too.