Cesspool, cess pit or septic tank

Davesnave

marksoton wrote: »

The biggest issue is the media ( bacteria ). Kill them and trust me you're in trouble.

Too much clean water and you'll kill them, too much concentration of chemicals and they'll also perish.

I think that's correct.

When next door created a problem here, it wasn't just prolonged non-emptying which caused it, but a probable breakdown in the functioning.

Having the tanks side by side, it was possible to see how totally lifeless theirs was, compared with ours, which looked like it had the head from a glass of Guinness on it.

Since then, they've been more careful, and the differences in appeaance seemed minimal the other day, when we emptied them.

marksoton

An agent i worked with made this mistake.

We were drop testing a large reservoir and after we were done he wanted to drain it. I warned him not to do it in one go. He disagreed.

He managed to decimate an entire prominent sewerage treatment works....:rotfl:

John_Pierpoint

Back in the mid 1970's a Shell oil facility took the government (probably the local council back then) all the way to probably the house of Lords.
Shell was processing all its own waste and won the right to contibute nothing to the local sewage charges.
The result was an impressive rise in charges for those of us on cesspits/pools.

I got hold of the specifications for a septic tank (its called septic because all the Oxygen has been taken out of the effluent by the microbes and they are now operating slowly in Methane mode).
Despite not realy passing the ground permeability tes,t my tank has worked trouble and maintenance free ever since and saved me a fortune.

Don't play with it and break the crust that forms on top of the major initial tank.

There are two things that could cause a problem:
CH4 is much more of a greenhouse gas than CO2 (and potentially explosive).
Areas of the country have been designated as needing protection for underground drinking water

[Anyone got the linkyto the map ? - there used to be a thread on here with all useful links for someone thinking of buying a property]

Try this
http://apps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/37833.aspx

Elfbert

The house I grew up in had a septic tank - as kids it was a big event to see it being emptied! Although to be honest, we only had it emptied twice in the entire time I lived there - about once every 8 yrs.

Recently my Dad mentioned he'd had to empty it more and more regularly, down from 8 yrs to 5, to 2. So he started 'topping up' the bacteria with these weird bacteria-bombs you flush down the loo, recommended by the guy who pumped it out. It's all happy and healthy again now.

I think it was just a combo of a few cleaning products being used over the years which depleted the bacteria supply, and probably some things being washed down the sink which shouldn't have been.

It's very old-school, a huge concrete pit in the garden, with massive concrete 'planks' over the top - as such they do let the rainwater in, and it's a two person job to lift them for inspections.

mad_spaniel

The article about chess pits reminds me of my grandad, who in his 90s would wobble his way down to the cess pit and use a huge long handled scoop to ladle out the solids which he used on his runner beans…… He never had it professionally emptied or used any form of bacteria bomb .Oh for the good old days!

AdrianC

Elfbert wrote: »

It's very old-school, a huge concrete pit in the garden, with massive concrete 'planks' over the top - as such they do let the rainwater in, and it's a two person job to lift them for inspections.

Yeh, that's what we've got - at the very least, we're going to have to do something with the drainage field in the next year or two, I think. But we do have an occasional problem with the pipework to the tank blocking - you quickly get over the "disgusted noises" once you've got the rubber gloves on and the rods out...

Davesnave

mad_spaniel wrote: »

.Oh for the good old days!

Indeed, but consider the entry in Wiki for North Tawton, a village near me:
William Budd

The doctor William Budd (1811–1880) was born in the town, son of Samuel Budd, the local surgeon. His researches into the incidence of typhoid during an epidemic in the town led to him establishing that typhoid fever was spread contagiously, and in particular that the infection was excreted and could be contracted by drinking contaminated water. This discovery contributed to national improvements in public health through improved sanitation.

G_M

As a student, my friends and I briefly rented a gatehouse to a manor house. We were constantly ill. Eventually we called in Environmental Health who put it down to the fact that the drinking water was pumped up from a well that was downhill from the septic tank..........

Oh for the good old days!

:rotfl:

John_Pierpoint

The joys of early "globalisation"

"The death of the dog"

http://www.choleraandthethames.co.uk/

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholera

We as a nation survived by drinking beer and then switching to the chinese secret of tea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis