Soakaway Issues

[wcavanagh]

Hi All,

Hope you can help, renovating an old 1900's cottage, long story but need to put in new septic tank, and rain water drain.

No mains drainage, so my plan was to put a soakaway for the rain water, and a separate one from mini sewage treatment plant. Problem is ground water is high and clay soil.

I dug a 1m deep test hole, then a 300mm cube at the bottom of it, do to a rain test, this filled with water on its own, so ground water is seen at around 900mm down.

What options do I have, engineer is saying i may need a soakaway bund...

 

[r896neo]

What do you understand a soakaway bund to be?

 

[wcavanagh]

I do not know what one is, that was the note back from the engineer.

 

[Ian H]

I do t know what o e is either but with the percolation test your doing you should dig 3 holes.

I do them, fill the 300x300 bit, let it soak away over night. Fill it the next day and time it between 75 and 25%. Although if they fail, I go home and never hear about it again.

Could you store the rainwater?

What does it have for foul at the minute?

 

[wcavanagh]

I did 3 holes all with the same results, filled up themselves, I only have 2 sides of the garden that are lower than the house, so would need to used them for the flow.

At the moment, EVERYTHING goes to a septic tank, bad I know, but this is how it was when I bought the cottage. Building control want a new mini sewage treatment plant, and soak-away.

 

[Ian H]

And where does the outlet of the current tank go to?

I heard you can drink the water that comes out of some of those treatment plants!!

 

[wcavanagh]

It goes to a very saturated and blocked drainage field that I have no information or drawings for. Previous owner did not look after it, hence it all needs replacing now. At the moment I have to get the tank pumped fairly often. All a nightmare.

The treatment plants say you can discharge direct into a watercourse etc.. So quite cool, but at £6k hard on the bank

 

[Ian H]

You could always sell the discharge as spring water

Are there any watercourses nearby?

 

[wcavanagh]

Hahaha Cavanagh's Angus Spring Water

Nothing around, just fields unfortunate.