New build site not going to be connected to mains sewage

Racky_Roo

I was looking at a small development at the weekend (which is freehold) and I requested a breakdown of what the £130 pa per house maintenance charge covered.
It has £250 a year allocated to pump servicing and then £500 a year into the pump sinkage fund. I can only assume it means there is no mains sewage but the EA isn't sure and is going back to the developer to find out.

Does anyone have any experience of living on a housing estate where they have a sewage treatment plant rather than mains sewage and if so, can you let me know if there are any negatives (other than the maintenance charge) and if they have any issues or not. Just done a bit of googling and it seems that if you maintain it and ensure it's emptied regularly then they're fine.

Thanks in advance

davidmcn

Unless they've also mentioned a private treatment plant then I think it's more likely to be connected to the public sewer, but with the privately-maintained pump to get your poo up the hill. The risk to be aware of is whatever happens when the pump fails and isn't fixed quickly...

Racky_Roo

oh yes that sounds like it could be the case, Thanks David. I'm not too worried about the management co getting it fixed quickly as they managed my last estate too and were fab, things got done really quickly and they were proactive on maintaining things. Rare I know, but there are some good ones out there.

RelievedSheff

As David said it is more likely a private pumping station that connects to the public sewers.

The EA are really against new private treatment plants.

elsien

davidmcn said:

Unless they've also mentioned a private treatment plant then I think it's more likely to be connected to the public sewer, but with the privately-maintained pump to get your poo up the hill. The risk to be aware of is whatever happens when the pump fails and isn't fixed quickly...

That was the case at my last place. The first we used to know about any issues was when the sewage started appearing from the manhole covers.
So there were the pump repairs plus dynarod etc to clear the drain and clear up the mess. This slightly different as it was a 4 bedded residential home with the property owned by a housing association with ongoing debates about who was responsible.  
Definitely worth checking all that maintenance side out though.  

greatcrested

RelievedSheff said:

The EA are really against new private treatment plants.

No idea where you get that from. You may be getting confused with septic tanks....

thearchitect

Current discharge dilution requirements present challenges for septic tanks and, in some cases, small private treatment plants.  It's certainly not as easy as it was.

mosslife

RelievedSheff said:

As David said it is more likely a private pumping station that connects to the public sewers.

The EA are really against new private treatment plants.

You're confusing old fashioned septic tanks with water treatment plants ,the EA insists on the latter for new builds not on mains sewers. Private pumping stations are different.

ArchtiectBOX

The pumping station will no doubt be due to levels of the drainage and will just pump the foul drainage to the nearest manhole which has a gravity connection.

the pumps will need servicing each year, and will get clogged if used incorrectly which will need an engineer to attend and repair.

I would enquire as you how much storage is included and how are any issues identified, alarm, text message etc?

Is the wet well vented? How far is your house from the station? 

getmore4less

First stop before coming to MSE is

Check the planning application

 if still don't understand post the link. 

Mickey666

mosslife said:

RelievedSheff said:

As David said it is more likely a private pumping station that connects to the public sewers.

The EA are really against new private treatment plants.

You're confusing old fashioned septic tanks with water treatment plants ,the EA insists on the latter for new builds not on mains sewers. Private pumping stations are different.

Quite correct.  There are a few new builds (c.2000) not far from me - none are connected to mains sewers and they each have private treatment plants (look like large plastic domes about 4-feet diameter buried in their gardens) with the outflows going into a local river.  I don't know what their maintenance costs.

My house has two old-fashioned septic tanks, with their outflows going into separate drainage fields under our land.  I've no idea how old they are but they are no trouble at all.   I have them emptied every 2-3 years and the last time cost £70, so much cheaper to run than mains sewerage charges!