Septic drainfield/soakaway problem

gar1990

Hi, I have a large problem with our soakaway system and am looking some advice.
We moved house last year, buying the house of some people that we knew. Just before completing they found that they didn't have consent to discharge for their septic system and had to apply for it in a panic. That all came through and we moved. The house was finished as a private new build in 2012.

Fast forward 6 months and our neighbour called me to say our sewage was coming up in his field. We were shocked as the maps all showed the drains in our garden not 30m away in his field.

So we called the insurance company to investigate. As the farmer had been using heavy diggers in the area we thought that he had damaged that, the initial report came back to say the same but further digging was needed.

In the mean time we sorted the consent to discharge to show the real area of the pipes.

When the company came to repair the damage they dug and found that the pipes weren't crushed just blocked but in many many places. They said a full replacement was needed as the pipes weren't installed well

The insurance company has now said that we are not covered and have left us with all the investigation bills (approx 1000) and the bill to replace the soakaway (£8000)

Has anyone any ideas of what we can do?
Is there anyway to get the insurance to cover the cost?
if not is there any way to get them to cover the cost of the investigations which they said they would initially?
Is there any way to charge the previous owners through the misinformation? (They also stated to the solicitor that de-sludging was never carried out and was not needed)
Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Doozergirl

It sounds like either you or the previous owners haven't maintained the system by emptying the tank and let it overflow.

I know little about septic tanks, being a townie, but I've encountered the same this year and had to do some fast learning. There will be people that know more than I do, but if you don't empty the tank as often as it needs to be and let the tank overflow, it gets into the drainage field, blocks it and renders it useless.

My client only installed theirs in 2016 (new barn conversion - not my project) but they let it overflow; similarly to you, the neighbour complained about contamination of their pond, the drainage field is blocked and we've to organise replacement.

Did the insurance company replace the soakaway already? £8,000 is high. That would buy the whole kit and caboodle.

Davesnave

As above, there are people who believe that septic tanks never need de-sludging. They'll probably pop up on this thread soon, saying how their Uncle Ernie lived to be 92 and never once emptied his etc etc.

Regrettably, our neighbour's landlady was of this belief and her tenants weren't the most reliable of people either, so in 2014 we suffered contamination and blocking of our shared drain field, (we have seperate tanks) all on our land. It seems a high level of waste + several episodes of blockage jet washing on their side was to blame.

When we purchased this property, our excellent solicitor asked for a paragraph in both deeds to be amended, so we're no longer legally tied to the neighbour IRO drainage. This made it easier to 'convert' the owner of next door to 2 yearly sludge removal cycles. Had she refused, we'd have gone over to a treatment plant and left her to get on with it!

We jointly shelled-out around £2k for replacement of the pipe and drain field, fortunately 'losing' a lot of builders' rubble in the process! The work was done at mates' rates, but it still seems your quote for £8k is well over the top.

Many insurers look for any get-out. Here, if they know, they might argue that the extent of the drainage field was mis-described to them, or if you cannot show evidence of emptying, they could say that proper maintenance wasn't carried out, amounting to negligence. You'd need an expert witness to refute this, and I doubt you'd find one.

It sounds as if your solicitor asked about maintenance and the previous owners answered that none had been done. One cannot expect solicitors to be drainage experts, so if this answer was relayed to you, it was your decision how to proceed from there, seeking expert advice as necessary.

Sorry if the above sounds rather harsh, but it's the way I see your predicament here.

that

your septic tank will need de-sludging, maybe 6 monthly or every few years, depending on size of tank vs family size.

Apparently microbes can build up in the water and block drainage fields. One way is to replace the soakaway, but will probably get blocked again in the future. The other way is to get a fishtank air pump and let it blow air into the septic tank water, the oxygen kills the bacteria. It apparently takes 5 weeks before a slight visible change is seen, and often about 6 months fully restored

Doozergirl

I thought the point of the septic tank was to create anaerobic digestion. The water that eventually filters out of the second tank into the drainage field near the surface of the earth is dealt with aerobically.

The problem occurs when the sludge builds up faster than the digestion process occurs and you end up with raw sewage blocking what is essentially supposed to be a water pipe.

I'm not sure why you'd want aerobic action in the tank or how that helps unblock the drainage field?

Davesnave

Doozergirl wrote: »

I'm not sure why you'd want aerobic action in the tank or how that helps unblock the drainage field?

I'm puzzled too!


The two biggest problems as I see them are:

• use of powerful household chemicals, like bleach, which inhibit bacterial action
• failure to spot a blockage upstream of the tank, which can result in aggressive jetting and sludge escaping the tank untreated

tonyh66

that wrote: »

your septic tank will need de-sludging, maybe 6 monthly or every few years, depending on size of tank vs family size.

Apparently microbes can build up in the water and block drainage fields. One way is to replace the soakaway, but will probably get blocked again in the future. The other way is to get a fishtank air pump and let it blow air into the septic tank water, the oxygen kills the bacteria. It apparently takes 5 weeks before a slight visible change is seen, and often about 6 months fully restored

this is how the more expensive sewage treatment plants work, agitate the sewage to get air into it, or forced air. It doesn't kill the bacteria, it encourages growth, its the bacteria that breaks down the sewage.

J_B

Suggestion from a 'country boy'
1. Get the tank emptied
2. get a 'drain jetting company' to try to clean your soak-away pipes


Not a long term solution, but will certainly buy you some time and not cost anywhere near 8K!


Where in the country are you?
Maybe a local farmer could help??

that

Doozergirl wrote: »

I'm not sure why you'd want aerobic action in the tank or how that helps unblock the drainage field?

My friend rather than i had this issue sim 25 years ago. The they used a cheap fish tank pump and never at the time had the aerator nozzle, just a pipe going into the liquid.

his tank did have two compartments, unsure which one got the air hose, and the vids below one said the settling tank, while others say outgoing tank. I think it is the outgoing tank too?

Youtube explains it far better than I can
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZzgZ_kSaTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AukaTaLb0p8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhlAN0uEBM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnUNfQUSZI

Heard of Soakaway Worms? To be honest a bit doubtful of this, sounds like a scheme to separate a fool from their money, especially as he say that the household cleaning products kill all bacteria, but these worms will multiply in water
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txTqh1gSwC4

Apodemus

that wrote: »

Heard of Soakaway Worms?

:wall:

A properly functioning septic tank should be anaerobic, worms are aerobic. If your aim is to convert the septic system into a composting system, then we can talk worms! In the context of a septic tank it is snake oil.

Davesnave

Septic tanks don't need aeration, but treatment plants probably do. The worm video shows only one type of tank, like a glassfibre Klargester, but before those came brick-built ones. Ours was built in 1974 and it's still fine, structurally.

I don't know about the worms, but it seems obvious they'd take time to work and most people need rapid results. When our drainage field blocked, we emptied the tanks, dug up the last bit of pipe, rodded it from access points and sent water through it till it was clear. There was no build-up of fat, so that was relatively easy; it was just black goo.....lots of it. (Apologies to anyone eating breakfast!)

Then, because we could, we dug a huge 8' deep hole, filled it with rubble, sent the extended pipe into that and then extended the soakaway beyond this hole down gravel lined trenches for another 50m or so. Not textbook, but it works fine. Our soil happens to be on a 10 degree slope and most areas are free draining. However, we failed to find bed rock with our first big hole and had to dig another, because doing what we did on clay wouldn't work. I could see that the first big 10' x 8' hole on clay didn't drain all the time it was open.

As an aside, another neighbour's drain field, built at the same time as ours, began giving trouble roughly when ours became blocked. They had it jetted, nothing else, and this resolved the problem to an extent, but I can see that the black sludge is surfacing again in winter. I don't complain because one of this couple is very ill, it's in a place far from our house and there's little impact on our agricultural activity. However, I know what the end game will be, because renewal in that place isn't an option due to changed regulations. They'll need a treatment plant.


Maybe that's the solution for the OP.