Cesspool, cess pit or septic tank

Richard_Webster

My wife as a teenager in early 1970s dug down 14 feet to construct a septic tank for the bungalow that her father was building. It was sold in 2007 and the septic tank had never been emptied!

Hoploz

I viewed a house where the man had dug his own system with reed bed etc, said he'd never emptied it in 40 years!!!

aniahill

So I should find out if it was home made (I already know it was 1975 so the provenance is good) and hopefully made by a teenager and I'll be set!

I'm presuming things like using grey water for the garden will help and as little cleaning product in the water as possible. I do already use ecover products which I've heard is better because it's plant based. Any other hints?

Davesnave

By coincidence, I've just had mine emptied this afternoon. I say 'emptied,' but its capacity is huge, so that's never going to happen.

It's a 1974 model, attached to what was originally a 3 bed bungalow. Goodness knows who they thought was going to be living in here; a family of elephants, perhaps?

aniahill

Good timing for my questions! If it's such an enormous size, how do you decide when to have it "emptied"? Is it annually?

And how do people with a more appropriate size one know when to empty it? Is it trial and error at first?

Davesnave wrote: »

By coincidence, I've just had mine emptied this afternoon. I say 'emptied,' but its capacity is huge, so that's never going to happen.

It's a 1974 model, attached to what was originally a 3 bed bungalow. Goodness knows who they thought was going to be living in here; a family of elephants, perhaps?

Hoploz

When we first moved in I did lots of research on septic systems, read up on this forum, and rest of the Internet. Found out all about it, grey water blah blah ... In the end I decided to just forget about it, live as normal, and get it emptied once a year as advised. We are only 18 months in, but so far there's no smell, no issues, it all just works the same as a standard plumbing system.

The only thing the emptying man said was no bleach, and no other chemicals, eg don't put paint down it etc. The toilet cleaning products I normally use are suitable for septic systems so no need to change your life! The only thing I didn't know what to do with was some white spirit I'd cleaned some paintbrushes out with - I left it out in the sun to evaporate, and switched to water based satin for the woodwork instead

Davesnave

aniahill wrote: »

Good timing for my questions! If it's such an enormous size, how do you decide when to have it "emptied"? Is it annually?

And how do people with a more appropriate size one know when to empty it? Is it trial and error at first?

We didn't have ours emptied for 5 years and it was fine, but next door, who share the same drain-field, overflowed into it through neglect and messed-up the percolation.

They'd been not emptying for ages in the mistaken belief that "these things work best if left alone." Possibly 10 years of inaction.

So, we had a partial empty and replaced the drainage field two years ago. We thought we were going to do a full empty then, but the lorry was too small (only 2500gallons!)

As I've finally convinced next door that they should do some maintenance, we celebrated the 2 year milestone with another big empty today....but we still didn't get near the bottom of the tanks.

We will reconvene in 2 years time and repeat, but I reckon we could probably get away with 3 or 4 years now. It's not worth the risk, though, given that a new drain field costs about 10x the price of a tank emptying.

aniahill

This is great guys, thank you so much!

D00gie72

I bought a property recently which has a cesspit with a land drain (basically its a cesspit with a hole in it) If you have seen a bill for emptying that the previous occupier has had it may be worth phoning the company that emptied it and having a chat. Lots of people use the same emptying company all the time for their tanks - so the chances are that company will be familiar with your property and may be able to tell you exactly what you have and how frequently its emptied etc. £330 sounds a lot to me we pay £135 each time for our emptying.

aniahill

That's a really good shout - thanks. I have a copy of the past 2 bills so I've got the company details.

How frequently do you have it done at that price?

D00gie72 wrote: »

I bought a property recently which has a cesspit with a land drain (basically its a cesspit with a hole in it) If you have seen a bill for emptying that the previous occupier has had it may be worth phoning the company that emptied it and having a chat. Lots of people use the same emptying company all the time for their tanks - so the chances are that company will be familiar with your property and may be able to tell you exactly what you have and how frequently its emptied etc. £330 sounds a lot to me we pay £135 each time for our emptying.