The company would have been happy to install it, but their cost had to include transporting diggers etc,. to site and we had builders (and appropriate kit) onsite at the time, so I got the builders to do it.
Can't remember with any details now, but must have been of the order of £5K You could do it yourself, but I read stories of tanks lifting out of the ground - particularly after emptying, at a time when water table was high. Mine is encased in a lot of concrete, although I suppose the alternative it to re-fill with mains water after emptying - provided you / future owners know that they have to ... Mate of mine decided that any repair/replace to the electric motor in the tank was an unpleasant job has chosen a brand that only uses aeration. He has a small compressor pump in a shed and an air pipe to the vessel, so any future maintenance/repair will be in his shed. I like the sound of that, but if mine goes wrong I will "get a man in" so not particularly bothered. That mate also told me (although not sure if he did it that way) that it is possible to have an existing cesspit lined. Some sort of tank / chamber is inserted into the existing cesspit to provide a modern system (i.e. clean water outflow) whilst reusing the existing cesspit, and the existing foul water pipework that flows into it. I could ask him for details if anyone is interested - its perhaps an answer to your next question, but in my case would not have provided me with a rainwater filter & store.
All reports I read, on Government websites around the world, mostly American but with the exception of the Aussie one that said to put Chlorine in it and use it as a water store, said something like "Hugely dangerous, fill with sand" .. Re: Klargester Watch out for the height of the inlet and outlet pipes. If you are on the side of a hill you won't have a problem, we are very flat here and getting a suitable fall for the pipes is always a problem. Alternative is pumping, but pump failure means overflow and all sorts of problems with contamination if that gets into any storage tanks. |
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dpack |
a hole and a liner is fairly cheap,perhaps backfill the old tank is the best option
i dug a worm hole for new drains through a pre victorian cess pit that was under a useful building and that still had a smell which changed and that might have indicated "active"things, chlorine or oxygen "bleach"might work but a new hole ,a liner and a few lengths of pipe would be a safe and not too expensive option. |
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dpack |
the hugely dangeroos might be i relation to the h2s gas that collects in such holes | ||||||||||||
kGarden |
I don't know the volume of our old cesspit, but the Klargester installer bloke said it was very unlikely to be more than 5,000L - I asked the question wanting to know how much irrigation storage it would give me, clearly "not enough" on its own.
I am presuming that the ground water will seep back into it as we pump it out, and we don't need much in the way of rainfall on the house, sheds and barn (all piped to the rainwater drains) to refill 5,000L (1" of rain on 200 sq.m. would give 5,000 Litres). When I originally Googles there was plenty of material about the residual bugs, and that Chlorine would only kill the ones in the tank itself and there would be more some distance away in soil / finger drains. Forgive my ignorance, but aren't they going to need fresh sewage to eat in order to multiply? Mine is only for irrigation, and I wasn't planning, initially at least, to use it on the veg patch (luckily the irrigation distribution backbone pipe, off the water main, starts by the vegetable patch and then continues up the garden and the cesspit / storage area is at that end, so a single strategically placed isolating valve in the pipe enables me to use mains on the veg patch and grey water on ornamental garden. But it has got me thinking that I should configure the pump, which moves water from Old Cesspit to Above ground store, to only pump when cesspit is (say) 75% full (i.e. during heavy rain) so that there is always plenty of water in the cesspit and chance of bugs / H2S would then be reduced? |
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Ty Gwyn |
Just a point of clarification,
Septic Tanks drain, Cesspits don`t,they need pumping out. |
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Treacodactyl |
They both need pumping out, cesspits it's all the water and solids, septic tank it's mainly the solids. The digesters also need solids pumping out but they produce cleaner water that doesn't need a large soakaway. As far as I understand it.
Can't remember with any details now, but must have been of the order of £5K |
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Can't remember with any details now, but must have been of the order of £5K |
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On the note of dealing with an old tank, anyone know what state it would be in if it's not been emptied for.... decades? |