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Who has a septic tank ?

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Who has a septic tank ?

Postby RogerS » 05 Apr 2019, 12:34

Then did you know that the 'moratorium' for allowing them to discharge directly into a watercourse expires Jan 2020. General Binding Regulations explain it all. Severe penalties for continuing to do so and, of course, if you come to sell your property and the purchasers' solicitors are on the ball then you could have some problems with the sale.

Have discovered that ours, and contrary to what the vendor told us in writing when we bought the place, does not discharge to land (ground) but into the stream.

Vendor claiming caveat emptor...I have Which Legal and so in contact with them. Our new 'local' solicitor wants to go through the whole file etc before advising...I can understand that but it would take at least a couple of hours to wade through it all. I'd prefer the Small Claims Court.

Our surveyor is also in the frame for the bill since he said that the discharge might go into the stream but at no time did he advise or draw my attention to the need for a permit if this was the case and also the demise of the permission in 2020.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby TrimTheKing » 05 Apr 2019, 12:38

Hmmmm I do so I need to look at this. I'm sure that some of the 'grey' water from mine goes out to a stream in the farmers field.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby RogerS » 05 Apr 2019, 12:40

TrimTheKing wrote:Hmmmm I do so I need to look at this. I'm sure that some of the 'grey' water from mine goes out to a stream in the farmers field.


I suspect that you will find that all the grey water goes into the stream.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby TrimTheKing » 05 Apr 2019, 12:55

Well this is the confusing bit because we also have a soakaway, so I'm not entirely sure where the water from the septic tank goes...

Might do some tracing at the weekend...
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby RogerS » 05 Apr 2019, 13:09

Would the soakaway not be just for rain and surface water ?
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby RogerS » 23 Sep 2019, 08:34

Well, bit of an update.

After nearly two months, I finally extracted from RICS (the 'P' is silent) details of the ombudsman/adjudication company used by my surveyor. Went through the process and it's Good News and Bad News.

The Good News is that 'I consider the building survey provided by the company's surveyor fell below the standard to be reasonably expected by the average person'.

I'd love to have seen the surveyor's face when he read that..he is such a pompous so-and-so. And I was awarded a small amount of compensation.

The Bad News is that the muppet who carried out the adjudication said that as far as the requirement for a replacement sewage treatment plant ( the big ticket item) wasn't known at the time of the survey and so the surveyor would not necessarily have been aware of the requirement ..."noting that theGenral binding rules for small sewage discharge (SSDs) dated January 2015 do not specifically mention the point".

He/she is a fool. It IS there in black and white. In three different documents of the time (2015). The bad news is that there is no appeals procedure which I think is out of order. I can understand no appeal for something that has a subjective context but when it comes down to a clear error in reading a factual document then there damn well should be.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby Simon_M » 23 Sep 2019, 10:33

RogerS wrote:
TrimTheKing wrote:Hmmmm I do so I need to look at this. I'm sure that some of the 'grey' water from mine goes out to a stream in the farmers field.
I suspect that you will find that all the grey water goes into the stream.

A friend is having his cesspit replaced with a mini sewerage plant, same rules mean it’s a costly exchange and more than £12,000, a traditional septic tank would surely have cost less?

My septic tank leads into a soak away at the bottom of the garden. No direct/indirect watercourses nearby. Changed habits and try to rinse and collect food waste and not put it in dishwasher (ends up in a strainer) and wash coffee solids into the bin too. Probably wasteful of water used. So far (4 years) on, not had to empty the septic tank again or needed dishwasher repairs.

Temptation with a septic tank must be to use a watercourse if available to minimise size/expense of soakaway. Providing current regulations are adhered to, it seems unfair to have retrospective laws apply.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby TrimTheKing » 23 Sep 2019, 11:14

I still need to look into this as I now know that my grey water runs off into the stream, but I also know that when my pump failed and the grey water pump chamber filled, my septic tamp inspection chamber also back filled, which makes no sense!

I fixed the pump and emptied the grey water chamber and within a day the septic tank chamber emptied too... There are ZERO entry pipes into the pump chamber from the septic tank side so I can't see how this is even possible, but it happened!

My only other though was that it was very rainy at the time and I wonder if the ground was so wet that the soakaway wasn't working, and it emptying coincided with my pumping the grey chamber and the rain stopping so ground dried up...

Seems to coincidental but I can't see any entry pipes from septic tank to pump chamber so it's got me stumped! I'm very close to pulling the trigger on paying for a full camera based drainage survey done just so I know what's what...
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby RogerS » 23 Sep 2019, 11:18

Simon_M wrote:.....
A friend is having his cesspit replaced with a mini sewerage plant, same rules mean it’s a costly exchange and more than £12,000, a traditional septic tank would surely have cost less?

....


He must have a very big house with a lot of bedrooms ! Or an incredibly difficult site to work with.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby Woodbloke » 23 Sep 2019, 13:53

We had one in our bungalow near Shaftesbury years ago, but soon after we moved in they laid on mains drainage which we jumped at, but we did have to pay for a contractor to lay the pipes from the back of the bungalow out to the main road - Rob
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby SamQ aka Ah! Q! » 24 Sep 2019, 15:49

Mark, I had a full camera recce of my idiosyncratic drain network done, with high pressure jetting of blockages, in a morning for £400 a few months back. I, as a legendary Scrooge, feel it was a superb investment as it rendered huge detail (including locations and distances) of our pipework. Camera alone would have been £70-£150, depending on complexity. Good job.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby TrimTheKing » 24 Sep 2019, 16:37

SamQ aka Ah! Q! wrote:Mark, I had a full camera recce of my idiosyncratic drain network done, with high pressure jetting of blockages, in a morning for £400 a few months back. I, as a legendary Scrooge, feel it was a superb investment as it rendered huge detail (including locations and distances) of our pipework. Camera alone would have been £70-£150, depending on complexity. Good job.
Sam


That's exactly the kind of info I was looking for, Cheers Sam. The lad's coming round later this week so I'll see what the deal is.
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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby SamQ aka Ah! Q! » 24 Sep 2019, 16:47

Ask for a video. USB pen usually. It has data on-screen; enables you to approximately locate where interesting(!??) items are located. In my case, two completely unexpected junctions, with fresh-ish lining work that stopped me digging up the hall...not kidding; our sewer from the thunderbox goes straight under the house..go figure.

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Re: Who has a septic tank ?

Postby Woodbloke » 24 Sep 2019, 17:25

When we had our pipe work for the mains drainage laid (which went under the drive) I decided to plant a small weeping willow tree on the front lawn within about 2m (as I recollect). I subsequently found that the root system on a willow will seek out the nearest convenient source of water which meant that my newly laid pipes could have been infested with willow roots in a very short space of time.

The sapling was rapidly removed - Rob
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