is this the norm??

[Uncle Homer]

i have just brought a house with a septic/holding tank and wondered if usually the water from sinks bathtubs and showers get plumbed into the tank as this will speed up the filling process, i need to install bathrooms and plumbing and wondered if i could plumb all that water into a seperate holding tank for the garden or simply into a drain field?? sorry if this seems a stupid question but i must ask it..thankyou

Grant

[Keni]

Hi,

Although our place is mains, our friends all have fosse septics, and all their water waste  from sinks and loos go into the fosse. One of our friends has a large place with five bathrooms, and if all of us are staying over all gets used, but there has to date never been a problem - she just has to make sure the 'bacteria' doesn't get killed off, so that it continues to work - that is breaking down the greeblies.

One of our friends though does have her kitchen sink and bathroom sink plumbed into a water butt and uses this for watering the garden - that too seems to work.

Good luck

Keni

[BJSLIV]

If you have a fosse etanche (holding tank ) I think it would be quite normal for the sink and bath water to go direct to earth, not via the tank, otherwise you would be emptying the thing every few weeks.

 However if you have a modern fosse septique or fosse toutes eaux then everything, other than rainwater should go into the tank. The volume doesn't really matter as it seeps away through the drainage pipes, leaving the solids to be take away every couple of years.

If your building changes require any sort of permission, then you can expect this to provoke an investigation of the efficacy of your drainage system, and if you really have a holding tank arrangement then budget for the cost of installing a modern toutes eaux system. (£3000+)

Any holding tanks will need to be replaced with something more modern at some stage, as bath water draining away direct does not conform with current standards.