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Septic tanks versus mains sewage

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Last Post by Majordennisbloodnok 4 years ago

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Mars

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Topic starter 16/03/2022 3:08 pm

Curious to know who isn't on mains sewage?

Not being on mains sewage takes a level of greater dedication to keeping your sewage systems clean and healthy. We don't have a septic tank. The previous owners put in a home sewage treatment plant, which is great, but requires us to be very disciplined with what goes down the drains and toilets. We have to greatly limit FOGs (fat, oil and grease) as well as chemicals that can kill the bacteria that are breaking things down, which means we have a low impact array of personal (toiletry) and home cleaning products.

This has opened our eyes to the products we used to use when we were in urban environments, and using low impact cleaning products, even if you're on mains sewage, is just so much better for the environment.

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mjr

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16/03/2022 3:40 pm

Septic tank here. As I understand it, while not as sensitive as a home sewage plant, it's still worth being careful because the better the tank flows and breaks things down so they can go out to the leach bed, the smaller the tank emptying, although the call-out charge dominates anyway. We add dry used coffee grounds or oats to old oil or fat and put them into the food waste collection, not down the drain.

And cloggers like wet wipes (even some that claim to degrade!) need to be avoided because jetting the pipes costs more than a tank emptying.

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Mars

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Topic starter 16/03/2022 4:40 pm

@mjr, I like the idea of using the coffee grounds to soak up oils. We don't deep fry so never have excess oil in significant quantities. Most of our coffee grounds end up in the compost bin or in plant pots that are home to acid loving plants.

Wet wipes are awful, even the ones that break down as you've said. The other thing we've found that takes forever to break down is kitchen roll. We've now stopped flushing it because it can clog up our vibro filter in the home sewage treatment plant tank. We've also found that Muck Munchers help to slow down and break down the sludge layer.

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Majordennisbloodnok

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16/03/2022 7:37 pm

Another off mains sewage here.

We have a Klargester under one lawn, dealing with the septic waste and a soakaway under another lawn dealing with the waste water from the kitchen and utility room. It was set up that way well before we bought the house and yet Southern Water had the temerity to try billing us for water treatment when they sent our first bill. It took about six months of paper trail (and us refusing to pay until they sent us an appropriate bill) before they started playing nicely.

As for what we put into the Klargester, we’ve never been big on wet wipes and so on anyway, so have never had flushing problems. The biggest problem we found was working out which toilet cleaners are OK to use. Harpic is the only mainstream product we’ve found that declares it’s compatible with septic tanks.

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Mike Patrick

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01/04/2022 12:03 pm

@majordennisbloodnok

We installed a Klargester 5 years ago as part of a total renovation project. House was not on mains drainage or mains water at the time.

Our first water bill assumed we were on mains drainage. It took a while to prove to the water company that they had no sewer in our village!

Klargester has been excellent. No smell, no noise. We have an annual maintenance contract. There are only two of us in the house and the sludge only needs pumping out every other year. It drains into a soakaway in the adjoining field.

We are careful to only flush the 3 Ps (poo, pee and paper down the loo), so no wet wipes. We don't use toilet cleaners any differently from when we were on mains drainage. But if I have to clear a blocked sink, for example, I'll always take care to flush with plenty of water afterwards.

We put coffee grounds on the garden, together with what little cooking fat we have.

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Majordennisbloodnok

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01/04/2022 12:16 pm

Posted by: @mike-patrick

@majordennisbloodnok

...

Our first water bill assumed we were on mains drainage. It took a while to prove to the water company that they had no sewer in our village!

...

Our utility company were similar, but we took a more confrontational approach I'm afraid. They wanted proof of installation and all kinds of other documents, all of which were property of the previous occupants. We simply told them we'd supply an invoice from the waste removal company to demonstrate we had a septic tank and that they'd have to be content with that. If they were content, they could send a revised bill and if not then we wouldn't be paying them anything until we'd received such a bill.

I'm pretty sure they were trying to push the responsibility onto us in order to try and get more money from us, but we were making it blindingly obvious they'd lose in a small claims court and therefore it was in their interests to act reasonably. After all, we weren't trying to avoid paying for legitimate services rendered; just not paying when it wasn't appropriate.

I agree with you that the Klargester has been great. We have a local company that come round once a year to empty it and we don't even need to remind them. The bill is very reasonable and markedly less for the whole year than the quarterly charge the water company were trying to charge us for sewage treatment. Food for thought, eh?

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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