Water meters

Not in Scotland, Water and wastewater are part of the Council Tax (about 21-25% depending on band). The more the value of your house the more you pay for water and sewage.

 

That can't be throughout Scotland Jocko. Mr S. deals with that sort of thing in our household so I'll check with him tomorrow. The reason I question it is because we have septic tank drainage and pay for that to be emptied ourselves.

 

Jocko is correct that the vast majority of Scottish households are charged for water and sewage as part of their council tax, however, if like us who are on private water ( lovely spring water with no chlorine or anything else! added it to it bar the odd tadpole maybe) and septic tank you don’t pay anything for water or sewage which saves us over £900 per annum. I can never quite understand why people get their septic tanks emptied regularly. There should be no need unless you insist on using vast amounts of bleach and non bio washing powders. Been in our current home for 20 years and never needed to have the tank emptied. Touch wood never run out of water despite some really dry summers like this one.
The only snag is after so many years drinking pure water none of the family can stand “ town water” as we can taste the chlorine, yuk!

 

Or into the water table.

 

I just wonder how long it will be before we start importing water.
I'm sure China could sell us some.

 

I thought that they were just a large under ground tank that you pumped out when full, I didn't realise it was legal for the liquid element to be released into the ground.
I often see the tankers struggling down country lanes.

 

Yes from the house roof .

 

I always have a bucket handy,saves a lot of walking.

Is it true then that the veg always grows much better closer to the place where the tank is buried.

 

There's something not right there, then, shiney! Are you sure the Company used is trustworthy?
This is a subject close to my heart, as I constructed our fosse toutes eaux in 2006 to the brand new rules then in force in France. All grey water had to go into the 3,000l tank, with the kitchen sink water entering via a grease-trap tank. Then the liquids are piped through a double-layer sand and gravel filter bed (double-layer on clay soil) before being piped off down to the nearest stream. The main tank is supposed to be emptied once every 4 years. BUT...if the system is working properly, as the fosse septiques did in France for centuries, there's no need to empty anything! As Hailbopp says, as long as you go easy on the bleach and other chemicals, aerobic activity takes care of the solids.
After a couple of years, the French water authority admitted that the new system wasn't working particularly well because the filter beds were clogging up. Their solution was to suggest that folks have the filter bed excavated and the 28 tonnes of sand and gravel sent away to be washed, then the filter bed reconstructed In their dreams! It's quite enough having to clean the grease trap regularly, despite taking care not to put grease down the sink! We were also informed that the new systems was designed to be replaced by a new filter bed every 15 years. Oh really? The French mostly ignored all the legislation and carried on with their ancient systems
Now some bright spark has decided that microfilter, pumped systems with a minimum 6,000l tank are the way forward...pfffft.
It's all about 'jobs for the boys' here...tank emptying, chimney sweeping, pool fences or alarms......but now we're French, we're doing like the natives and quietly ignoring the directives. A sort of passive 'vive la revolution'