Any experience of septic tanks?

mr.blonde

We are trying to buy a house at the moment which is a two minute drive from the nearest village. It's not in the middle of nowhere. We viewed the property and read the schedule but when it was surveyed my solictor mentioned a septic tank. We had no idea there was one, no metion in the schedule and didn't see one when we visited. Anyway, does anyone have any experience of these? We would like a rough idea of what you need to do for upkeep and emptying, how often and the cost.

Thanks for any help with this.

x

bel2310

Hi,
Don't know if ours is typical, but we have a septic tank. Have had not problems with it. I have it emptied every couple of years by a local farmer who charges about £60. I was told the main thing with septic tanks is not to put too many chemicals into the system, e.g. don't put bleach down the drains every few days.
Hope this helps

Mrs_pbradley936

You will not notice much difference but you should not flush anything other than toilet paper. Unless you have babies with disposable nappies or lots of women/girls in the house you will not need to anyway. When you buy toilet cleaner read the back to see it it is suitable (most are). You should arrange for someone to empty it every other year, phone the Council or look in Yellow pages. I think it costs about £70.

netwalk

We have a septic tank and have no problems with it at all. Just remember the advice above not to put anything unnecessary down the toilet (oil, chemicals, rubber products (if you know what I mean!) etc).

The BIG advantage with a septic tank is that your water bill is drastically reduced as you don't pay the local water board to take away your waste water, just to supply clean water. Our bill, unmetered, is approximately £200pa plus £60pa to have the tank emptied. It would be well over £400 if we were on the mains drains.

To sum up, don't worry, septic tanks are fine. Julian.

benood

Hi we moved into a house with septic tank (vintage 1906 I think) in feb this year - it did seem a bit daunting initially - but has been fine in practice - we're aware of what we put down and are a bit worried about the soakaway but only because it's unusual - if we could I think I'd pay to connect to mains drainage but so far we're saving money! If you like the house don't let it put you off.

david29dpo

i love my septic tank and wound never go on mains again! however, check the soak-away. have a look under the manhole cover past the tank, there should little or no water it it. is it a private tank or shared?

AndrewSmith

We had one and found it excellent.

Just make sure that you use non-bio in the washing machine and don't use bleach down the drains or loo.

We used to pay about £85 every 18 months approx to have it emptied.

As said above look under the manhole covers (usually 3-4 in a row) exposing each chamber. There should be no water at all hardly and should be a 'crust' on the top if it is working correctly. Don't stress if it needs emptying as it is very cheap and easy to get done.

Excellent things, would never be put off by one.

mr.blonde

david29dpo wrote:

i love my septic tank and wound never go on mains again! however, check the soak-away. have a look under the manhole cover past the tank, there should little or no water it it. is it a private tank or shared?

Not sure if it's shared as there is another prperty in the vicinity, but our solicitor is looking into and checking things for us. The soak away is onto the neighbouring farm, not sure I want to look at anything though!

Thanks

benood

As if there was a problem with the system you might need to replace your soakaway I would make sure your solicitor checks that you have the necessary rights of access etc to do any work which might be necessary in future - you don't want to be unable to effect repairs should your dog worry his sheep or something!!

Don't worry about looking - it only smells really bad if it's not working!