Reed beds - anyone got one ?

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RogerS

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Good ? Bad ? Troublesome. Just as expensive as other solutions? Looking for any real-world examples in a domestic setting.

Looking at a few videos on maintenance have confess that I'm not that enamoured with all that malarkey.
 
I don't have one, but a former acquaintance of mine has a set up in a domestic situation which I visited a few years back. I'll try to find his details.

The strongest advice I can give you on the subject is to oversize the installation, and to have it work entirely by gravity, so if you have a slope, exploit it. As soon as you involve pumps etc you are into maintenance and failure issues.

Both the Hockerton Housing Project and the Centre for Alternative Technology have large scale reed bed systems, and have run them successfully for decades. They both offer consultancy, so you could try them for some info. CAT used to have some excellent leaflets on individual subjects such as this.
 
RogerS":1n4okdoc said:
Good ? Bad ? Troublesome. Just as expensive as other solutions? Looking for any real-world examples in a domestic setting.

Looking at a few videos on maintenance have confess that I'm not that enamoured with all that malarkey.

I have one to filter a "natural swimming pond". Is that the sort of thing you have in mind? It's in its 4th year, but certainly not perfected yet. Is yours for fish? Sewage? Grey water?
 
Trainee neophyte":1pgoi76b said:
Is yours for fish? Sewage? Grey water?

Vietnam War re-enactments.

150417130311-10-vietnam-war-timeline-restricted-super-169.jpg


Sorry, I'll get my coat :oops:
 
A local farm uses a willow bed for effluent filtration
The willow is coppiced and sold every couple of years
 
Trainee neophyte":2pug9f4t said:
RogerS":2pug9f4t said:
Good ? Bad ? Troublesome. Just as expensive as other solutions? Looking for any real-world examples in a domestic setting.

Looking at a few videos on maintenance have confess that I'm not that enamoured with all that malarkey.

I have one to filter a "natural swimming pond". Is that the sort of thing you have in mind? It's in its 4th year, but certainly not perfected yet. Is yours for fish? Sewage? Grey water?

Sewage.
 
Why not bag it up and post it to the people who annoy you on the brexit thread, kills two birds with one stone!!!!


Ohhh hang on this may back fire on me ....................
 
I have some basic experience of this. Some years ago we had a farm which for the main house had a Klargester, and for outbuildings effluent flowed to a reed bed of about a third of an acre, which was linked to a series of biggish ponds and eventually a stream. The Klargester rotating plate system also output clean water to the reed bed. The reed bed was fed from a trickle underground water supply I think as well, though I never found where , or proved that.

The ponds contained a large amount of wildlife and tench which were fine.

What I would say is that although it worked perfectly (I did not install it but it was only a year old when I bought it) it required strict care. This mainly revolved around the necessity to have strict control over disposal of sanitary products, non biodegradable toilet tissue, and grease traps in the kitchen and utility systems.

We saved a lot on waste water disposal. But to do it well, I suspect you need to balance reed bed size against inputs quite carefully.
 
RogerS":fgocazfd said:
Trainee neophyte":fgocazfd said:
RogerS":fgocazfd said:
Good ? Bad ? Troublesome. Just as expensive as other solutions? Looking for any real-world examples in a domestic setting.

Looking at a few videos on maintenance have confess that I'm not that enamoured with all that malarkey.

I have one to filter a "natural swimming pond". Is that the sort of thing you have in mind? It's in its 4th year, but certainly not perfected yet. Is yours for fish? Sewage? Grey water?

Sewage.

Aha. A bit outside my experience then. My only advice would be to work out what size you need, and add at least 50% - double it if it would fit. Just in case.

My septic tank is no longer draining, and I may need to retrofit something similar. I am currently thinking about installing a leach field, which it doesn't have at the momnt,but a be could also work. At the moment it has a naturally developed organic recycling system - a mad jungle of growth in a suspicious circle, surrounded by desert. Hmm.
 
doctor Bob":4ywf73rd said:
Why not bag it up and post it to the people who annoy you on the brexit thread, kills two birds with one stone!!!!


Ohhh hang on this may back fire on me ....................

[youtube]JnWEZXsHSDc[/youtube]
 
BigMonka":2ab5a0w2 said:
One of the local sewage specialists near me no longer do them as the temperature in Yorkshire/North East can be enough to freeze the beds which then leads to pollution issues. More details are on their website here: https://www.wte-ltd.co.uk/reed_bed_sewa ... tment.html
Ouch. That's good enough for me. Idea scrapped.

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