Hi, just wanted to see what peoples opinions are on our houses septic tank.
We live in a rural area (no mains sewage). The septic tank is across a major but single carriageway A-road into a neighbours back garden. There is no space on our side for a septic tank/soakaway due to the road. 8 houses and around 25 bedrooms lead into this septic tank. The owners of this house with the septic tank attempted to sell but the septic tank stopped this, as a failed drainage field was picked up. We were all briefly approached about replacing the old septic tank with a sewage treatment plant, but this stopped once the sale fell through. This system in some form or another has been working for >20 years, along with contribution to costs, but there is no formal easement in our deeds. We do have an insurance policy taken when we bought to cover this absence of easement.
The issue is that the 6 houses on our side of the road are connected via a single pipe which leads down our drive and under the road. All of our surface water drains into this pipe along with the foul. There are multiple issues with damaged inspection chambers, along with some fairly damaged pipe/buried inspection chambers our side. There is no space for a soakaway, but we do have a single drain on one of the properties which appears to drain well and may link to the highways system. (The road was moved years ago)
Would you:-
1. Patch up the worst issues, such as chambers/broken pipes. The system appears to 'work', although probably isn't compliant with EA regs.
2. Re-lay pipes on our side, splitting foul and surface water. It has been suggested this all leads into the drain with the good outflow. Basically getting our problems in order, prior to dealing with the actual septic tank when the neighbours attempt to sell again.
3. Look at replacing the whole system at once and managing lots of different parties.
Or do people have better suggestions?
We live in a rural area (no mains sewage). The septic tank is across a major but single carriageway A-road into a neighbours back garden. There is no space on our side for a septic tank/soakaway due to the road. 8 houses and around 25 bedrooms lead into this septic tank. The owners of this house with the septic tank attempted to sell but the septic tank stopped this, as a failed drainage field was picked up. We were all briefly approached about replacing the old septic tank with a sewage treatment plant, but this stopped once the sale fell through. This system in some form or another has been working for >20 years, along with contribution to costs, but there is no formal easement in our deeds. We do have an insurance policy taken when we bought to cover this absence of easement.
The issue is that the 6 houses on our side of the road are connected via a single pipe which leads down our drive and under the road. All of our surface water drains into this pipe along with the foul. There are multiple issues with damaged inspection chambers, along with some fairly damaged pipe/buried inspection chambers our side. There is no space for a soakaway, but we do have a single drain on one of the properties which appears to drain well and may link to the highways system. (The road was moved years ago)
Would you:-
1. Patch up the worst issues, such as chambers/broken pipes. The system appears to 'work', although probably isn't compliant with EA regs.
2. Re-lay pipes on our side, splitting foul and surface water. It has been suggested this all leads into the drain with the good outflow. Basically getting our problems in order, prior to dealing with the actual septic tank when the neighbours attempt to sell again.
3. Look at replacing the whole system at once and managing lots of different parties.
Or do people have better suggestions?
