Water meters

Our system is not quite the same. We have a cylindrical metal tank with an outlet for liquid near the top. Land drains (perforated clay pipes) run from the tank towards the 'soakaway'. The original soakaway was supposed to be 6ft deep but about 2ft x 2ft. After about 30 years neither the soakaway nor the pipes were working as they should but after investigation the pipes had shown movement because of tree roots.

This was covered by the old style insurance so the insurance company had new porous compressed bitumen pipes put in (supposed to be the super new type of pipes that would last at least 20 years) and ran them in a different direction and put in a less deep soakaway. After 5 years these new super duper pipes were found (or not found) to have disintegrated due to land heave from a couple of year's of excessive rain. A war of words with the insurers ensued (they said they had no record of them having said they were superior and would last that long - so I produced the letter they had sent ) and they still refused to replace them. Instead of me taking them to court (I'm always happy to do so - as per the cases of Albert Haddock ) I had a trick up my sleeve of knowing a bank's insurance department that had their staff mortgages (over a thousand of them) with that insurer. They agreed to replace the pipes with the original style.

After another 20 years we were having problems again and it turned out, after drilling and excavating, that the water table was too high to put in another deep soakaway and we would need to have a very large but shallow soakaway put in that would cost in excess of £15,000. We decided not to bother and to have the tank emptied more frequently.

Over here it is illegal, since 2020, to do that and the nearest running water is two miles away.

Over the last three years the cost of emptying the tank, and all three chambers that are between the house and the tank, has risen from £90 to £140. Still a considerable saving on replacing the soakaway and the disruption it would cause as it is difficult to get to that area. The tank needed more emptying than it used to, also because of us opening our garden to visitors where we could have 500 people visiting on that weekend.

A proper septic tank must still have a filtration system but would cost, in our situation, something in excess of £10,000.

 

No wonder everything grows like mad in shineyland, it's like hydroponics ...

 

Climate change?

I think it had risen at that time because of two very wet years - also, we subsequently found we had a water leak in the front garden that must have been going on for ages as the front garden was saturated up to 18" from the surface (we weren't on a water meter at that time). They had fun and games trying to find the leak and eventually, after three days, decided to run a new main to the house.

 

Naw! We never water the area in question. The sprinkler is only on the veggies and some of the flower beds.

 

Unfortunately, from a dispersal drainage point of view, we have very flat land here so the liquids just tend to seep away very slowly. One of the neighbours, who has a 2,000 gallon tank still pumps his surface liquid into the field. It's an electric pump with a very long hose attached and, at night, he throws the end of the hose into the field. He usually waits until the wind is in the right direction so as not to bother the neighbours. The joys of living in the country