Groundworks
Since we moved here in mid December we've had drainage problems: the house isn't on mains drainage and the existing provision was an old blockwork septic tank and pit soakaways. When it rained a lot there simply wasn't anywhere for the drains to go, leading to blocked drains and backed up toilets, which wasn't great in the depths of winter especially with babies being born. So, I researched possible solutions and found a company that could install a mini treatment plant. Unlike a septic tank (which just stores your waste until it hopefully degrades anaerobically, with the liquid leaching into a gravel pit) this will actively treat it, so it can be safely discharged to the brook nearby.
This week, after a month's delay due to the Environment Agency not understanding their own new type of permit, we had the new system fitted. Don't worry, there are no pictures of anything unpleasant!
Here's the garden and the old tank. The previous owners had raised beds built on top. Note also the metal pole and telegraph pole, left over from a vegetable patch and rather overspecified washing line:
So, they start by digging a very large hole (3-4m deep and 3m square. Underneath the pile of rubble at top left is the old tank, which was skilfully bashed in with the digger and now contains most of the spare soil.
Now the new plant is lowered in and fixed with concrete. It's basically a large plastic bottle with an air pump, which means aerobic bacteria process the waste - much faster.
The pump controls live in a separate box to the side with some indicator lights - these will tell us if something stops working! Power is provided by an armoured cable to the house, the system draws less than 3A and is almost completely silent, even in our rural location - the birds are a lot noisier.
There's another pump that runs occasionally to pump liquid to the brook - it's pretty clean by this stage, but this is why the Environment Agency need to know.
The installers were kind enough to remove the poles from the garden - I was intending to dig down and saw this one off, but the digger pulled it out easily:
All done: there's only a small pile of rubble left for me to dispose of, the ground is level(ish) but will probably slump a bit once it rains, then we'll have it landscaped. They were kind enough to spread out the spare gravel on our drive:
All this was done in two and a half days with minimal disruption to us - just a few hours when we couldn't flush the toilet. Now we can really begin to plan what we do with the front garden!
This week, after a month's delay due to the Environment Agency not understanding their own new type of permit, we had the new system fitted. Don't worry, there are no pictures of anything unpleasant!
Here's the garden and the old tank. The previous owners had raised beds built on top. Note also the metal pole and telegraph pole, left over from a vegetable patch and rather overspecified washing line:
So, they start by digging a very large hole (3-4m deep and 3m square. Underneath the pile of rubble at top left is the old tank, which was skilfully bashed in with the digger and now contains most of the spare soil.
Now the new plant is lowered in and fixed with concrete. It's basically a large plastic bottle with an air pump, which means aerobic bacteria process the waste - much faster.
The pump controls live in a separate box to the side with some indicator lights - these will tell us if something stops working! Power is provided by an armoured cable to the house, the system draws less than 3A and is almost completely silent, even in our rural location - the birds are a lot noisier.
There's another pump that runs occasionally to pump liquid to the brook - it's pretty clean by this stage, but this is why the Environment Agency need to know.
The installers were kind enough to remove the poles from the garden - I was intending to dig down and saw this one off, but the digger pulled it out easily:
All done: there's only a small pile of rubble left for me to dispose of, the ground is level(ish) but will probably slump a bit once it rains, then we'll have it landscaped. They were kind enough to spread out the spare gravel on our drive:
All this was done in two and a half days with minimal disruption to us - just a few hours when we couldn't flush the toilet. Now we can really begin to plan what we do with the front garden!