We often get the privilege of being able to carry out installations in some of the most beautiful areas in the UK, one place we frequent for new installations is the Yorkshire Dales. Amongst the many picturesque rural hamlets and villages, the vast majority of properties require some form of off-mains drainage.

The nature of a lot of these properties means that a good percentage of them will have/ historically would have had an old brick built septic tank or cess pit installed to handle the domestic wastewater. Whilst this may not necessarily always be a problem if the outfall is to a functioning drainage field, if the old unit discharges to a watercourse, then this will no longer comply with the 2020 General Binding Rules.

This was certainly the case for a recent enquiry we had from a customer in a small village in Swaledale, the property was a beautiful 5-bedroom Victorian dwelling that was unfortunately being served by a non-compliant septic tank discharging to the nearby watercourse.

In a bid to achieve compliance with the government guidelines we were asked to provide a quotation to install a new package sewage treatment plant to serve the property. The system we selected to suit the application was a Klargester BioAir 3 premium package sewage treatment plant with the aim of reconnecting back to the watercourse.

Another common issue with a lot of older properties is the roof/surface water and wastewater are combined, this causes and issue both with Building control and with the Manufacturer’s operational guidelines as the treatment plant is not designed to handle surface water, too much of which will cause the effluent quality to be compromised.

Therefore all surface water needed to be dye tested/ CCTV surveyed to check for any cross connections and consequently disconnected if any are found.

Excavation for the new treatment plant was to be carried out in the graveled area to the rear of the property where cars are sometimes parked, this further aided in our selection of the treatment plant as the BioAir can be installed with the standard lids being replaced for a B125 Traffic duty cover and frame.

The new unit was to be located adjacent to the existing septic tank  and once the new unit was correctly sited and surrounded in concrete we intercepted the existing inlet drainage and diverted it to the new installation location.

This allowed for the old septic tank to be emptied, decommissioned and infilled with a granular material to avoid any potential future settlement. The area was then overlaid with excavated spoil and graded back in line with the topography of the land – you almost wouldn’t know it was ever there!