Interesting chat, now into drainage...(-: I am no expert on the subject though think perhaps Queen Vic`s Albert may have picked up typhoid at Balmoral as the drainage system may have ended up with a foul to drinking water proximity issue relating to distance between foul waste and the well used for drinking water..?
Living a few hundred feet up the valley side with a few hundred feet more above, drainage is ever worthy of consideration and lack of maintenance seems to be the norm with field drains displaying issues in the local area...Shrug..! I converted an out of use and one time piggery aidle tank that for use as a septic tank, as when I bought this place the outflow from the septic utilised the field drainage system which I spent a great deal of time digging up and clearing even though the field was not mine, but responsibility for the tank outflow was and it was used for grazing, less so these days.. As a housing estate was built below the field and the aidle tank outflow was connected to the main drains, so I re-routed the foul water to that tank when I built the extensions and added more toilet facilities in the process... Sigh!
For sure household detergents can kill of the microbial action in septic tanks, apparently the condensate from gas boilers can do much the same and I have two of them, one for UFH and the other feeding rads..?
So there you have it I am taking ages to clear moss from the roof because I do not wish to suffer fabric damage when gutters would overflow because I have grates in the gutter to stop the moss that the birds loosen on the roof from eventually getting into the field drains that would then require to be dug up and cleared again...! It was circa 30 years ago I spent a week or more clearing the one on the septic tank outflow, and I`m not up for that task again, so when the weather allows I can be found up on the roof.... Yeah, you can take self reliance too far....
Perhaps the seemingly extensive moss growth of more recent times could be down to all those folk running about in sports cars for fun or worse still those olde Morgans with V8 engines that have zero cats and emission control systems other than an auto choke....They need to be regulated or taxed off the road...OUCH..!
