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Not sure whether this should be under House Renovations or not, apologies if not.

We had to have our fosse emptied and cleaned the other week and before we started using it again I chucked a sachet of Eparcyl down the loo in the hope of getting it going again. Two weeks later we have a smell from the fosse again. We are careful what we put down it and only use products with the "Sans danger pour fosse septiques" labels. It is not blocked or overflowing, the water level remains the same. We have the kind which runs off into a communal drain through the village rather than a soakaway.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should have put something stronger into the fosse to get it going again before we used it. Should there be a hard crust formed on the top before the smell abates?

Any advice from someone with similar experience would be appreciated as the pong on a hot day is not pleasant!
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Do you have a separate tank for wastewater ie washing up etc? If so it could be that which is giving a bad smell, especially after the hot weather the last few weeks. This has happened to us several times, and had to be cleaned out. Pat.
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The other thing which we had happen was that whilst we were away the u-bend in the washing machine outflow dried out, so there was no water seal and the smell was coming from there. It wasn't until we went to use the washing machine that we caught on.
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Thanks for all your replies. I'm going to try a strong dose of Eparcyl, hopefully that will kickstart it before it's too late.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry if I'm a bit late here but I've only just noticed the post.

Dick and Fantine both made good points but alarm bells started ringing when I saw the word "cleaned"

Septic tanks should never be completely emptied. About 30% of the sludge should be left and this should be the top 30% ie any pumping should be done from the bottom up. Trouble is the vidangeurs are engineers and not biologists they don't all realise that the top stratum is the most biologically active and all they want to do give their pumps an easier life. Always be there and check the pump is going right down to the bottom (listen for the clunk) and not hoovering the sludge up from the top like they tend to do because it's easier on the pump.

Also was the tank emptied right out of everything ie all the liquid too?If this happens you've got to fill it up with a hose or something otherwise it's going to work like a fermentation vat and not a septic tank until it fills up to the outflow naturally. A septic tank has to be an open anaerobic system or the fermentation products like lactic and proprionic acids will start killing the bacteria that produce them

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