Septic Tank?

jalowes2002

Have recently purchased a property with an old septic tank, which seemingly is very efficient. I am aware sanitary products are not supposed to be put down the toilet but a friend of ours also said you shouldnt use general household cleaners, as it kills off the bacteria.

I have googled to try and find any cleaners that are suitable to put down the toilet and sink etc, but it does not seem to have come up with much. Any ideas/thoughts anyone??

paul_h

A septic tank can cope with reasonable domestic use of of household chemicals, but excessive use will cause problems, so don't go berserk with the bleach. Some people avoid the use of biological washing powders, but this is not absolutely necessary - so long as you are not over-using powder, the warm water from washing actually helps the bacteria to work properly.

You can switch to the Oxy-type bleaches which are more septic tank friendly .

So, if you only use bleaches and other cleaning chemicals when necessary and you should be OK.

HTH

jalowes2002

Thanks, will bear that in mind

aimeelister

We have a septic tank with our house in France.
You are right with the sanitary products and that some cleaners are bad for the bacteria (so we were informed)
Be careful with the toilet paper you use. The really thick super comfy stuff takes ages to be broken down, you are better off using the cheap thinner stuff, most definately dont flush the wetwipes you can use for childrens bottoms.
We are lucky in Fance because we can look at the cleaning products and quite a few say "suitable for a septic tank" - but in French. As a rule we dont use bleach down the sinks if we mop the floor with bleach the bucket gets chucked over the road/drive not down the sink. We also wouldnt use other bacteria killing cleaning things like the stuff you stick down toilets and caustic soda and others.
Nearly all washing up liquids and other normal "mild" cleaners seem to be fine - we havent met one yet we cant use. We just as a rule of thumb use everything sparingly.
If your OS then stardrops wont be a problem!

Dont forget it will need to be emptied every couple of years. A friend also has a small septic tank which can struggle with large volumes of water often when they have loads of people round to stay, so the saying goes in the loos.
"If its yellow let it mellow, If its brown flush it down." That way there are no issues of an overflowing and smelly tank!