Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Septic Tanks

These seem to be the rules..
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/general-binding-rules-small-sewage-discharge-to-a-surface-water

Scotland seems to be Guidance, not regulation.

This should provide all you need to know via scotgov.uk North of the border.

Thank you Peter and Richard.

Why not just blank off the overflow from the septic tank and convert it to a cess pit (sealed tank that needs regular emptying) , as I understand it perfectly compliant?

The septic tank would be far too small to use as a cess pit and it would probably require emptying every week. Don't forget it's not only sewage that is disposed, also all the waste water from domestic use etc.

To retrofit a cess pit would be an extremely costly exercise and the size required would be prohibitive to install. The required capacity would be in the region of 60 cubic metres and with the house at full occupancy would provide only 45 days of storage. These figures are taken from official guidelines.

I'm going down the route of a sewage treatment plant, it's just proving more difficult than I expected to find impartial information on reliability and running costs.

Both my neighbours have had Klargesters for more than 20 years, the only problems that I am aware of have been with physical damage to the wiring installation from house to tank.
As our home was once a dairy farm we have a trouble-free large traditional brick & concrete septic tank system installed in the 1950s, but it does involve 3 acres of herringbone clay drainage pipes, difficult to retrofit!

Hope this helps

If you have the space you could try a soakaway system. In favourable ground conditions they will work but in clay soils or similar they will eventually fail. Mine failed and I now have a catchment pit where a submersible solids pump kicks in automatically to pump to a herringbone system on the Forrest floor. I'm on my second pump now but the first one lasted around 20 years with no maintenance.

I think you have the right idea in going for the treatment plant, if you asked the supplier maybe he could put you in contact with previous customers to get their honest opinions on the system?