Buying a house in the county and letting it out for holiday makers or to use for your own personal retreat may seem like an amazing idea. It is! However, dealing with the sewage might not be on your list of things to think about when planning the house. Let’s face it, it’s not the most glamourous topic.
However, if the house is not near mains sewage then you will need to treat the waste onsite. Choosing the right solution is vital, especially when a house is used infrequently
Why do holiday lets pose such a problem when it comes to treating the waste? Because of sporadic us. when usage of a building or holiday home is infrequent, bacteria in the treatment plant will die. Consequently, treatment quality suffers and pollution can happen. This problem exists for any normal treatment plant.
You may notice there are a lot of different treatment plants available for domestic properties. However it’s unlikely you will find one that says “good for holiday homes”. There is a reason for this, normal treatment plants don’t cope well with long periods of no use. A treatment plant is designed to grow bacteria, which feed upon contaminants in the waste. Consequently, if there is no waste for a long period of time, bacteria will die off. Herein lies the problem, how to deal with the waste if the house is unoccupied for long periods? Fortunately, there are a couple of good options available.
A septic tank in to a well constructed drainage field is the first best option, and for good reason. A septic tank is designed to hold solids back and allow liquid to drain out of the tank. The main treatment happens in the drainage field installed in the ground. The reason have suggested this first, is because the bacteria in the soil and on the gravel will live a lot longer when there isn’t anyone using the system.
A drainage field is a series of pipes, installed within the ground and surrounded in gravel. The gravel acts as a filter upon which bacteria grow, it is this bacteria that clean the water making it safe to dispose of in the ground.
The size of a drainage field is determined by how quickly water drains through the ground and how much water there is coming from the building, in some soil conditions (heavy clay for example), it is impossible to install a drainage field as the water wont drain. However, with good pourous ground, water will be drain and be cleaned by bacteria living in the gravel that is used to construct the drainage field.
A trickle filter system is a style of treatment plant that uses the same base principle to treat wastewater as a drainage field (detailed above). It comprises of a septic tank and a filter. The filter will treat the waste, removing contaminates and allowing the treated water to be discharged into a ditch or stream. These trickle filter systems are also energy free, however a pump is sometimes needed to lift the waste from the outlet to the ditch.
Holiday lets suffer from infrequent use, therefore it is important to choose a treatment plant that will keep bacteria alive for longer periods of no use. The Ecoflo treatment plant works very will in this environment, but don’t rule out a traditional septic tank and drainage field if you have the land available to install the drainage field.
Whilst some companies claim a septic tank is an outdated method of treatment, it is still fully accepted by the environment agency as treatment within a correctly constructed drainage field is excellent. Therefore, there is little risk of pollution. It must be noted however, that the drainage field must be sized and constructed correctly, British water have produced a good leaflet to explain how a drainage field differs from a “soakaway”.
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