Cess Pit Adventures

[Onoff]

Well my cess pool/septic tank, pit 'o **** filled up quicker this time. Plenty of ladies time of the month products down there despite me telling the female members of the household and visitors not to!

So it's pumping time again. Rang the same nice folk I used last time to find that the guy who last came in 2019 succumbed to cancer just before Christmas. Seems his treatment was delayed during lockdown and it spread! Anyway they (his wife),are coming back to me on Monday with a date.

He was amazed back then, that in 20 years, up until then it had never been emptied.

There's a series of man holes down the garden connected by clay drains. Basically this:

I hacked a path where the drain line is next to those rubble bags.

The rusty manhole cover is an inspection pit. That has a couple of holes in that must allow heavy rain in:

This is the cover over the pit. Lift that and you're straight into the brown stuff. Built in the 50's, the pit is about 8' diameter and brick built. I'd estimated about 4250L by volume. The top is bricks gradually built into a dome and rendered. A few holes in that too. The ladder is a safety precaution!

Hacking through the brambles again got me thinking once again about a treatment plant so I got the long tape out and did a rough sketch.

Any thoughts welcome as to position, make of treatment plant etc as I've not got a clue as to a starting point. The centre of the cess pool is 1500mm off the lhs boundary. The boundary came long after the cess pool was built when some of the land was sold off.

I know a few folk have the Vortex unit that they're happy with. Most say avoid ones that have mechanical workings submerged in the poo soup as maintenance is horrible.

Rough sketch:

 

[cocker]

Whatever you put in won't deal with the sanitary products .
Tell them properly or give the girls a bucket full of recovered items !
Wet wipes are as bad - AND non of them are "flushable" .
the girls here were politely requested to join me with the drain canes on a couple of occasions , no problems since !

 

[Agroshield]

If you are thinking of changing it, would it pay first of all to do an assessment of where your rainwater, grey water and black water currently end up?

If the rainwater does not go into the existing one, that is already good, but if you can deal with the grey water separately, that might save money in the long term.

 

[jenki]

+1 for not having mechanical workings in the pit. My BIL has an aerated one, the pump is in a small housing to the side of the tank all the workings are clean and easy to get at. If you are going to replace it you may be in for a world of pain with discharge consents inspections etc. In Wales we had to register existing septic tanks/leaky cess pits with Natural Resources Wales not sure what happened subsequently as I sold the cottage.
If you are tempted to replace it and say nowt I suspect you will be fine untill the time comes to sell; solicitors seem to go through everything you have done to the property these days I had to get 'Indemnity insurance' for some roof works I did without BC approval (£15 I think so not too much of a worry.)
Last thing how high is your water table? the tank may, almost certainly will need to be secured in place there have been instances of tanks floating upwards as the water table rises in winter. Good luck.

 

[gaz1]

Whatever you put in won't deal with the sanitary products .
Tell them properly or give the girls a bucket full of recovered items !
Wet wipes are as bad - AND non of them are "flushable" .
the girls here were politely requested to join me with the drain canes on a couple of occasions , no problems since !

no matter how many times you tell them or place a bucket at side of the toilet they dont listen

so fully agree with the above and have done it many a time

its a rotten job having to rod drains

 

[knighty]

how much quicker is quicker? and how much does it cost?

I'd be very tempted to leave it all along and have it pumped out

 

[Onoff]

Passed the point of rodding. Needs pumping. When the guy did it last he stuck the hose down a manhole and sucked the pipes clean once he'd done the pit.

 

[8ob]

No way in the world are you filling the main 4000ltr pit with solids in a year or even ten years, must be a problem with the filter beds.

Bob

 

[Onoff]

No way in the world are you filling the main 4000ltr pit with solids in a year or even ten years, must be a problem with the filter beds.

Bob

Or water is getting in and flooding it.

Not sure there is a filter bed?

 

[8ob]

Not sure there is a filter bed?

You need to find out whether its a cesspit or a septic tank, there is no future for a cesspit with modern day living. A few Dracula's teabags shouldn't make any difference to a septic tank.

Bob

 

[DAPPH]

If you are thinking of changing it, would it pay first of all to do an assessment of where your rainwater, grey water and black water currently end up?

If the rainwater does not go into the existing one, that is already good, but if you can deal with the grey water separately, that might save money in the long term.

Having a working soakaway is essential to keep the septic tank working, they do sludge up over the years
Had to install a new one to replace tohe original ones of some 40 years old that took the excess water 20 feet away into a new massive 10x 10x 10 foot hole filled with clean rubble and capped with wriggly tin two foot from the surface. I used new waste soil pipes and fittings too as the original pipework was the old salt glazed pipe with haunched joints which had been broken by tree roots

There are now bamboo cotton ( rayon ??) ladies hygiene products that do breakdown in a septic tanks. We used to supply perfumed waxed bags by each toilet for ladies used hygiene products,
As my daughter got older she went over to " MOON CUPS " finding them far superior too , so waste was much reduced , menopause sorted it for my wife .
You can also now get biodegradable bamboo cotton wet wipes too .

 

[gaz1]

the vent is in the wrong place should be within the dome area

Cesspools & Septic Tanks - SimplifyDIY - DIY and Home Improvement Solutions

the gully is not the best of things but its used to stop the smell coming back up the pipes but it can cause blockages

add ons can be used to further filter it but i think yours is old built so wont have the filtration on the end of it

heres a brick built dome simple things really

your system can still be used as a biogas plant before the cesspit

human waste biogas plant

 

[addjunkie]

I fitted one of these when ai converted my barns…has a little compressor, needs new vanes every two years or so.

According to the instructions it needs emptying* yearly. But its been two and no issues yet

 

[brightspark]

i have the klargester flask tank rainwater and foul both go in it gets emptied every 4 years. get it sucked out for £175 quid a go

 

[brightspark]

I fitted one of these when ai converted my barns…has a little compressor, needs new vanes every two years or so.

According to the instructions it needs emptying* yearly. But its been two and no issues yet

yea ive wired a few of them up . the air pump sit in a fibreglass box and blows air through a 2inch flexible pipe in to the crap pretty simple

 

[frank horton]

this is ours.....came from Diamond ...WPL in Southampton....this was rated for 15 persons....
only emptied it coz we sold up and they wnted it done.....
never touched it in that time....bought a bag of bacterior once per year but that was overkill.....
we had a sign made for each toilet....."if u havent eaten it first it cant get flushed"
pls remeber a big grease trap.....
the air pump had a diaphram, never missed a beat.....

nt eaten it first it cant get flushed"

 

[James1979]

When the guy did it last he stuck the hose down a manhole and sucked the pipes clean once he'd done the pit.

hope he brushed his teeth after….

 

[gaz1]

treatment plants are interesting so consider them, carefully

 

[OJCar]

I'll just leave this here ...

 

[Robotstar5]

I'll just leave this here ...

I saw Blaster Bates at the Birmingham Town hall in the 80's, cracking evening