Bill Taylor wrote:
On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:08:10 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:32:37 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Anyone got a ballpark figure for the cost of having a cesspool pumped
out?
If you really mean a cesspool it must be pretty big if you don't have
it done every few weeks.
Strictly speaking it is a cesspool (probably 4 x 5 x 8' brick built
chamber in the ground) which also has an outlet. The outlet then runs
off our property an apparently into the next door farm's Klargester. So
its main purpose in life seems to be to accumulate sludge, and allow
some decomposition to occur. Previous owners apparently only rarely had
it emptied, but I have a feeling with more of us living here it out to
be done more regularly. I shall have to go have a prod with a drain rod
and see what the sludge level is.

That's a septic tank, and it sounds like a good system, assuming that
the output does go to a proper disposal system (and you keep up a good
relationship with the farmer).

I suspect getting it emptied from time to time ought to help that
aspect... ;-)

Apparently sludge builds up at 0.2l perp person per day or less once
the anaerobic digestion is working properly. So with your 4.5 cu.m.
tank half full and a 4 person household, that works out to a 7-8 year
desluding interval. (+/- quite a lot as there could be lots of
variables.)

Ah, that is useful to know. There are five of us here now, but previous
owners were down to three. Its probably not been emptied for a good few
years. Having said that - the dimensions I gave above may be erring on
the small side, and I am not sure how deep it actually is.

One slight odd bit of design is the input is surprisingly close to the
output - it comes in about a foot or so from the corner on the long
side, and the output is about the same distance away from the same
corner on the short side.

--
Cheers,

John.

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