Closing off a fosse septic

[Sylvia]

We have just gone onto the mains and need to close off our septic tank.  Can anyone advise whether it is absolutely necessary to have the fosse emptied and back-filled with sand.  We are hoping to avoid this expense and just close it off but worry whether this could cause problems.  Any advice would be appreciated.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

From the standpoint of hygine, there is no reason to do anything other

than stop using it. From a safety standpoint...well, you are going to

have a probably water-filled concrete tank in your garden that future

occupants are possibly not going to know anything about. The chance of

someone falling through the decayed roof into the tank in many years

time is small, but, nonetheless, present. I don't know what the

regulations (if any) are, but my inclination would be to empty it and

backfill the tank with soil, sand or gravel for this reason.

[Alcazar]

When I replaced our inadequate one with a new one up to modern regs, we back filled it ourselves with soil, gravel, rocks etc, anything we had to hand. It WAS only a 1000 litre tank though.

Alcazar

[Mysfloss]

why not clean it out then connect your rainwater downpipes to it, thus having stored water for the summer months for you garden

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Mysfloss"]why not clean it out then connect your rainwater

downpipes to it, thus having stored water for the summer months for you

garden[/quote]

Now that is an idea! A fairly inexpensive surface pump would be enough

to move the water from a few feet down and keeping the tank in use like

this would (hopefully) prevent it from getting "mislaid."

[Alcazar]

Excellent idea, I only wish we'd been able to do it, but ours was only 1000 litres, and in the barn we were building out into.

Alcazar