Concrete Cover for Septic Tank needed! Where can you buy them?

[Sarahd]

Hello everyone.

We were in the process of laying a path in our garden when a hole appeared in the ground along the route of the path.

Upon investigation the cause of the hole is what I think is an overflow tank of some sort for to our main septic tank. The concrete cover for this tank had broken & the earth, over time, has been falling into the tank leaving just a thin crust above it. The workman in digging out the path dug through the thin crust & the sweet smell of "septic tank" now permeates the air.   

Anyway, everything seems to be in order with the tank, as far as I can tell, apart from the fact the cover is obviously broken & the whole thing is now exposed to the air. Clear water seems to be running into the tank through a pipe inlet that comes from our main septic tank which is situated nearer to the house.

I have two questions which hopefully someone can help me with as I am not an expert on septic tanks:

i) Is it normal to have a separate overflow tank of this nature linked by pipe to the main septic tank?

ii) More importantly does anyone know where I can buy a replacement concrete cover from? It has to be at least 1 metre wide to cover the circular lip of the tank. The old cover which is in fragments seems to be square in shape although obviously a circular cover with a diameter of at least 1 metre would also fit.

Can you buy these from somewhere like BigMat or Brico-Depot or does one have to go to a specialist supplier?

 

Many thanks for your help in advance.

Sarah

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Paul Bradford]

Hi Sarah,

We had a similar problem although our cover to the septic tank is only about two feet square. It had started to crumble. I looked around and couldn't find a cover, but was told by the guy that cleaned our tank that people normally make them up as there isn't a standard size. Basically you need to make a form (mould) to the size you require, then put in some strengthening, steel bars for instance and a handle. Then put in a concrete mix and wait for it to dry. Yours seems to be rather a large cover, so would probably be quite heavy once you'd made it. Or if that might be too heavy, perhaps a couple of pieces of steel cut to size.

Not the answer you'd wanted I'm sure, but maybe someone else has a better idea.

Regards Paul

[BIG MAC]

Remove old lid cut some ply to size of old lid + 4" each way and place on top of tank, screw some 4x2 to the rear in order to join ply panels if need be and provide rigidity.

lay some dpm over the ply then screw some 4x2 round the edges to form a 4" upstand.

place some small pieces of paving slab in the bottom of the tray in such a fashion as to form 1 1/2" spacers arrange so tha they can support some steel reinforcement fabric.

paint timber edges with release agent (cooking oil may work at a push)

Fill the tray with concrete cover with plastic then tamp with a piece of timber slightly wider than the tray.

Allow the concrete to go off for about 4hrs then carefully remove plastic and trowel the surface smooth with a steel trowel.

Leave covered with damp hessian for about three or four days (As you have cast in situ it could happily stay there for ages) once you are ready its eay to lift the mould and carefully turn out the new cover. then up to you which way up you put it if you want handes simply use some plasic pipe with a wooden block screwed in side it then attached to the ply so that the pipe sticks up in such a fashion to create a hole right through (Missing the mesh) once all the formwork is removed you will have a nice cover with holes for lifting irons, if you want to block holes just use the appropriate sized stop end for the pipe that was the mould.

Hope this helps.

[SPRINTER]

A car drove over one of our concrete inspection covers (we have two for our fosse) and cracked it. I had an engineering friend cut me two steel discs from 10mm steel which I hammerited befor fitting in place. If you drill a small hole in the disc it will enable you to remove it for emptying etc. Hope this helps.

Regards

Dave

[Eslier]

Concrete covers are readily available at builders merchants, Gedimat, Point P etc. (but not brico stores)  You should find it is a standard size.