PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Hello Forumites! In order to help keep the Forum a useful, safe and friendly place for our users, discussions around non-MoneySaving matters are not permitted per the Forum rules. While we understand that mentioning house prices may sometimes be relevant to a user's specific MoneySaving situation, we ask that you please avoid veering into broad, general debates about the market, the economy and politics, as these can unfortunately lead to abusive or hateful behaviour. Threads that are found to have derailed into wider discussions may be removed. Users who repeatedly disregard this may have their Forum account banned. Please also avoid posting personally identifiable information, including links to your own online property listing which may reveal your address. Thank you for your understanding.

We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum. This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are - or become - political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

no gas and cess pit - what does that mean to me?

Hi,

As I may lose the house I'm after, I'm looking at other possibilities.
One house has no gas, but I don't want to have to use electricity for my heating, so I'm thinking oil???

The other bit is cess pit, does anyone have one and what do you have to do?

Thanks

GW
«134

Comments

  • lostinrates
    lostinrates Posts: 55,283 Forumite
    I've been Money Tipped!
    cess pit or septic tank? we have a septic tank. You don't put anygthing in it that you don't have to (i.e. no flushable tampax) and have it emptied every now and then. Ours is about 6 months. It takes aout 45 minutes and they send a bill: its very simple and easy.

    oil is most common, out here in the sticks.

    You can support that with any one of a number of new alterntaives should you be planning significnt works....if not they don't work out very economically so far as I can tell. Ground source of heat if u have a little land is one.
  • suisidevw
    suisidevw Posts: 2,256 Forumite
    May well be gas in the area. House we nearly bought did and if we had dug the footing 18" or so it would have been £350 to run it to the house. Obviously from there you just have to get hte gas comp to install the necessaries and plumber to run the pipes etc. I THINK!
  • david29dpo
    david29dpo Posts: 3,748 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Cess pit is a no no, more likely a septic tank but make sure.
  • suisidevw
    Apparently there is no gas in the village.
    (just realised, that probably means no broadband too!)

    lostinrates
    The house is out in the sticks. It doesn't have a lot of land, but does have a garden, guestimate 70ft x 20 ft.

    It does say cesspitt on the EA details. How much does it cost to empty it. And how many people are there in your household? I'm thinking it'll fill quickly with bath water etc for 5 of us. .... oh the old days of shared baths is coming to mind!

    What do you do about toilet paper, is that ok to flush?

    I'm also thinking wood burning stove, that'll help with the heating, and solar on the roof....... all these come at a cost, and the house isn't that cheap, and in need of repair too.

    Thanks

    GW
  • Richard_Webster
    Richard_Webster Posts: 7,646 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Cesspits have to be emptied more often. The emptiers come with their lorry and suck out the entire contents of the tank.

    Septic tanks have primitive form of treatment involved. The sewage is broken down by natural bacteria and some of the solids sink to the bottom. The liquid then goes out into outfall pipes with holes which allow the slightly purified liquid to leak into the ground. Because of this the Environment Agency won't allow septic tanks near watercourses or where the ground is not suitable. The bacteria don't work so well if you put bleach and some detergents etc down. This means that it is often necessary to have the solids pumped out because the decomposition hasn't happened as well as it should.

    A really good septic tank will go for years without any attention. My father in law built a bungalow in the early 1970s and my wife as a teenager dug out the pit for the septic tank in a field - 14'0" deep! OK the bungalow was only occupied by my wife's mum and dad and her mother died in 1981, but when we sold the place in 2008 the septic tank had never been emptied!
    RICHARD WEBSTER

    As a retired conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful assuming any properties concerned are in England/Wales but I accept no liability for it.
  • david29dpo
    david29dpo Posts: 3,748 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I have broadband and no mains gas! A cess pit has no outlet for the water waste so needs emptying often, you dont want one! I love my septic tank, far cheaper than main drainage!
  • benjo
    benjo Posts: 482 Forumite
    We lived in a place recently for about 4 years, no gas in the village so oil was the alternative option for us, it was fine, oil prices vary from day to day so if you have the option to check prices you can order oil when prices are low (well, on the low side - since no fuel is ever really 'low').

    As for the cesspit/septic tank, they arent as bad as you might first think, if you are careful not to flush anything other than loo paper (no tampons or goldfish!)then they can go years without attention, we had ours emptied once in four years and it cost £70.00. One advantage of not being on mains sewerage is a much, much cheaper water bill, I paid £13 per month to the water board compared to £31 per month for mains sewerage.

    As for broadband - our village finally got broadband in 2005, but the maximum speed available was only 2mb - on a good day, with the wind in the right direction. It is possible to get some deals with unlimited downloads but cheap prices for slow speeds unlike BT who price their services according to the amount of downloads rather than the speed you get.
  • lostinrates
    lostinrates Posts: 55,283 Forumite
    I've been Money Tipped!
    suisidevw
    Apparently there is no gas in the village.
    (just realised, that probably means no broadband too!)

    lostinrates
    The house is out in the sticks. It doesn't have a lot of land, but does have a garden, guestimate 70ft x 20 ft.

    It does say cesspitt on the EA details. How much does it cost to empty it. And how many people are there in your household? I'm thinking it'll fill quickly with bath water etc for 5 of us. .... oh the old days of shared baths is coming to mind!

    What do you do about toilet paper, is that ok to flush?

    I'm also thinking wood burning stove, that'll help with the heating, and solar on the roof....... all these come at a cost, and the house isn't that cheap, and in need of repair too.

    Thanks

    GW

    TBH I'd consider repalcing a cess pit with a septic tank, especially in a normal domestic scale property. There is no problem with septic tanks. I've never lived with one as wonderful as the one Richard Webster describes but have lived in several houses on tanks and honestly find them no problem/difficulty/inconvenience at all.

    Emptying costs, I'd recommend geting a quote from a few people local to you. Its not dear. :) There are two of us full time ish here, and two at weekends. (all adults). Its a minimum of two showers and a full bath a day going in to our tank and a weekend norm of two showers two baths a day.

    Toilet paper is fine to flush!

    No gas does not mean no braodband, we have broadband (now!) but gaslines will never come here :)
  • Obukit
    Obukit Posts: 670 Forumite
    As others have said, you certainly don't want a cess pit. We used to have one, and it was a constant PITA as you have to be really careful how much water you're draining, and lift the drain cover and check every so often that it isn't getting too full. Add to that if you've got guests over who aren't as careful with water it causes big problems, and can cause it to overflow raw sewage... not very nice! It's also usually a pain to be put in mains drainage as all the plumbing in your house will be draining towards your land, rather than the road, so you need deep trenches and lots of plumbing.
  • poppysarah
    poppysarah Posts: 11,522 Forumite
    You can look up whether it has broadband. Nearly everywhere does. Just rural is slower.

    Cess pit = a lot cheaper water bills in theory

    No gas = either gas cylinder or tank, or solid fuel.
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 346.6K Banking & Borrowing
  • 251.4K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 451.4K Spending & Discounts
  • 238.8K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 614.2K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 174.8K Life & Family
  • 252K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.