"RobertTT" wrote in message
m...
"Peter Crosland" wrote in message
...
I built my house 11 years ago and have never had the septic tank
emptied.
As long as the bacteria is active the solids will disappear.
Avoid strong chemicals and use an activator every 6 months
You will be told by others to have it emptied every year and average
cost
is
around £100

All well and good provided it is functioning correctly. Have you had the
output tested to see that it is within the consent limits?

Peter Crosland

What are the "consent limits"? Is this a legal requirement regarding
septic tanks?

If your septic tank discharges into a soakaway field such as a herringbone
system of drain pots within your own garden/land theres no-one likely to
have any axe to grind about consents.Discharge into a drainage ditch may be
subject to checking if the effluent is accessible. At the very worst after
many years of use the soakaway field may need digging out and replacing.
Nothing about it is rocket science and replacement is easy enough.
We had a septic tank installed in 1956, emptied it out in 1970, and it was
still running fine when we moved on in 1980. Its output soaked away into
about 50 metres of land drainage in our garden.
A dead cat or a bit of decaying road kill is a very good activator if the
bacteria are adversely affected by an uneducated housewife bunging bleach
down the toilet