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Treacodactyl Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 25795 Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 15 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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Treacodactyl wrote: |
Did you put in the Klargester yourself or get a company in to do it? |
The company would have been happy to install it, but their cost had to include transporting diggers etc,. to site and we had builders (and appropriate kit) onsite at the time, so I got the builders to do it.
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Would it be possible to give a rough idea of prices? |
Can't remember with any details now, but must have been of the order of £5K
You could do it yourself, but I read stories of tanks lifting out of the ground - particularly after emptying, at a time when water table was high. Mine is encased in a lot of concrete, although I suppose the alternative it to re-fill with mains water after emptying - provided you / future owners know that they have to ...
Mate of mine decided that any repair/replace to the electric motor in the tank was an unpleasant job has chosen a brand that only uses aeration. He has a small compressor pump in a shed and an air pipe to the vessel, so any future maintenance/repair will be in his shed. I like the sound of that, but if mine goes wrong I will "get a man in" so not particularly bothered.
That mate also told me (although not sure if he did it that way) that it is possible to have an existing cesspit lined. Some sort of tank / chamber is inserted into the existing cesspit to provide a modern system (i.e. clean water outflow) whilst reusing the existing cesspit, and the existing foul water pipework that flows into it. I could ask him for details if anyone is interested - its perhaps an answer to your next question, but in my case would not have provided me with a rainwater filter & store.
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I am wondering what to do with the old cesspit once it's been replaced. |
All reports I read, on Government websites around the world, mostly American but with the exception of the Aussie one that said to put Chlorine in it and use it as a water store, said something like "Hugely dangerous, fill with sand" ..
Re: Klargester
Watch out for the height of the inlet and outlet pipes. If you are on the side of a hill you won't have a problem, we are very flat here and getting a suitable fall for the pipes is always a problem. Alternative is pumping, but pump failure means overflow and all sorts of problems with contamination if that gets into any storage tanks. |
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 45515 Location: yes
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 45515 Location: yes
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 15 9:48 am Post subject: |
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I don't know the volume of our old cesspit, but the Klargester installer bloke said it was very unlikely to be more than 5,000L - I asked the question wanting to know how much irrigation storage it would give me, clearly "not enough" on its own.
I am presuming that the ground water will seep back into it as we pump it out, and we don't need much in the way of rainfall on the house, sheds and barn (all piped to the rainwater drains) to refill 5,000L (1" of rain on 200 sq.m. would give 5,000 Litres).
When I originally Googles there was plenty of material about the residual bugs, and that Chlorine would only kill the ones in the tank itself and there would be more some distance away in soil / finger drains. Forgive my ignorance, but aren't they going to need fresh sewage to eat in order to multiply?
Mine is only for irrigation, and I wasn't planning, initially at least, to use it on the veg patch (luckily the irrigation distribution backbone pipe, off the water main, starts by the vegetable patch and then continues up the garden and the cesspit / storage area is at that end, so a single strategically placed isolating valve in the pipe enables me to use mains on the veg patch and grey water on ornamental garden.
But it has got me thinking that I should configure the pump, which moves water from Old Cesspit to Above ground store, to only pump when cesspit is (say) 75% full (i.e. during heavy rain) so that there is always plenty of water in the cesspit and chance of bugs / H2S would then be reduced? |
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010 Posts: 4563 Location: Lampeter
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Treacodactyl Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 25795 Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 15 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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Ty Gwyn wrote: |
Just a point of clarification,
Septic Tanks drain,
Cesspits don`t,they need pumping out. |
Sorry, I've been slack with terminology. My Septic Tanks needed pumping out once a year, or so - many years we didn't bother - and had a system of finger drains - almost certainly blocked, over the years, but even so it didn't seem to be giving any bother
Treacodactyl wrote: |
The digesters ... produce cleaner water that doesn't need a large soakaway. As far as I understand it. |
I don't know how they work, but from what I have seen:
There are some big rotating pre-impregnated discs inside, they rotate slowly in-and-out of the liquid, giving whatever is growing on them a chance to catch its breath.
The chamber is physically divided into Inlet and Outlet chambers to a level above the outlet port. As part of the rotation there is a small "cup" on the inlet chamber side which scoops up a cupful and tips it into the outlet side. I suppose if there is not much inlet top-up that would empty the inlet side, into the outlet side, over time (its also possible that there is a connecting hole lower down so that the level stays constant). The outlet side remains "full" because the outlet port is high up.
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kGarden wrote: |
Can't remember with any details now, but must have been of the order of £5K |
Prices seem to be around £10k to get a company in to install one |
The price I paid could easily have been that. We had a lot of building works going on, and I just took a huge single intake of breath at the total figure!
Payback is "forever" though, compared to just irrigating the garden with potable mains water I think rainwater harvesting should be subsidised - better than building more reservoirs and cleaning up water to then just chuck it on people's gardens.
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On the note of dealing with an old tank, anyone know what state it would be in if it's not been emptied for.... decades? |
I don't think we emptied ours (i.e. didn't realise we needed to / get around to / have it on the calendar) for 5 years after we moved in. Nothing happened. Tanker came back a second time to properly empty it though.
I think that if there was an issue drains would be backing up and there would be a smell, particularly in periods of drought, to alert you to a problem. |
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010 Posts: 4563 Location: Lampeter
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Posted: Sun Jan 11, 15 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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Treacodactyl wrote: |
They both need pumping out, cesspits it's all the water and solids, septic tank it's mainly the solids. The digesters also need solids pumping out but they produce cleaner water that doesn't need a large soakaway. As far as I understand it.
That depends on several matters,like how big the tank is,how big a family using it,and how was it built,and how good the soakaway system is,yes i have built a few over the year`s.
On the note of dealing with an old tank, anyone know what state it would be in if it's not been emptied for.... decades? |
Like above,it depends on how it was built and materials used. |
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 45515 Location: yes
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Treacodactyl Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 25795 Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010 Posts: 4563 Location: Lampeter
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Nick
Joined: 02 Nov 2004 Posts: 34535 Location: Hereford
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Falstaff
Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 1014
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Treacodactyl Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 25795 Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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