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As a company we cover the vast majority of the UK for a multitude of wastewater services, this means we undoubtedly get to see some of the most beautiful areas of natural beauty, there are not many better examples of this than the Lake District.

In September 2023 one of our contracts managers was invited to provide a proposal to replace an existing non-compliant septic tank located on a farm near Troutbeck. By some miracle (anyone who knows the Lake district will agree!) the sun was shining, and we were able to fully investigate the existing site set up and provide a working proposal.

The existing brick built septic tank was located in the adjoining field some 25 metres away from the property, a number of issues had started to surface with the unit ultimately causing the system not to comply with the 2020 General Binding Rules.

In order to reach the criteria for the government regulations and building control guidelines we proposed two options for the new wastewater system on site: The Klargester BA BioDisc IPS package sewage treatment plant or the Klargester Bioficient 1 package sewage treatment plant.

As the eventual discharge location was to the nearby watercourse a suitable package sewage treatment plant needed to be installed apposed to a septic tank which would require a new drainage field to be installed. As the installation location was prone to being ‘boggy’ it was unlikely that favourable percolation tests would be achieved.

The two proposed sewage treatment plants both had their own benefits, ultimately the customer opted to proceed with the installation of a new Klargester BA BioDisc. Due to the surrounding area, the near silent and practically odourless operation of the BioDisc was better suited for the application.

Whilst the upfront costs for the BioDisc are higher than the aeration equivalents, this cost will eventually be offset over time with the lower power consumption. The BioDisc also comes with an optional extended warranty of 7 years providing the right warranty conditions are met.

In more typical Lake district weather, when we came to install the new sewage treatment plant we were met with more wintery conditions. With snow dusting the hilltops the ground conditions in the lower levels had become more saturated.

The new sewage treatment plant required the inlet drainage to be modified and diverted to the new installation location, this allowed the old unit to be kept in operation during the installation process as the old inlet would be disconnected once the new system was installed.

A more sizeable amount of pipework was required on the outlet side of things and 125 metres of 50mm MDPE pipework was installed towards the watercourse, prior to discharge point a new outlet sample point was installed and a short section of gravity outfall pipework to slow the flow before it entered the stream.

Both inlet and outlet manholes were installed in order to comply with Building regulations and also for easy of maintenance if any issues were to occur in future.