3 Key Drainage Options for People Living Off-mains

A large number of properties in several urban areas and remote locations of the UK are still not connected to the main sewerage lines.

11:13 20 August 2021

If you’re living in a property that’s off the main sewers, you may be scratching your head thinking about the different options available to you. In this article, we are going to guide you through three options so you can pick the one that best matches your requirements.

 

Main Sewerage Connection

 

All water companies need to keep their local areas drained with fully functioning sewer networks, so they always look to provide new connections where necessary. So, the option of connecting the drains running from your residence to the nearby main sewerage network is very much open. You can either get your drains connected to a public sewer (direct connection) or to a private sewer (indirect connection) which in turn drains out into a public sewer, based on where you live.

 

Talk to the local authority if you’re planning to connect your drains to a sewer directly or indirectly and find out more information on application, cost etc. You might have to hire a drainage consultant too, to see whether you might face any challenges connecting to the main sewer and to help with the application process.

 

Connecting to mains can be daunting for people living more than 100 ft away from the nearest main sewer and for those living in low-lying areas where the drain pipes running from houses are usually positioned below the mains. To overcome this, a pumping station might need to be installed which usually entails some sort of a section 104 work.

 

If there is not any main sewer within that distance or if it runs higher than the sewage drains of your property, you may have to consider installing private systems, which brings us to our second and third options namely the sewage treatment plant or the septic tank.

 

Note: Explore the option of connecting to main sewers fully and see if it’s worth investing into. If you reckon it’s viable and will serve you well for a long time, you may as well apply for a new connection.

 

Sewage Treatment Plant

 

Sewage treatment plants are usually the go-to choice of people living off mains. This technology has grown significantly in recent years, with several new ways and special equipment coming up for processing foul water efficiently. 

 

A clear departure from cesspools, which are meant to just collect wastewater, a sewage treatment plant uses an array of chambers to treat the water and make it suitable enough for release into a ditch, a stream, a river or the ocean. When water enters the first chamber of the plant, the solid and the liquid waste separate with the solid waste residue settling down at the bottom and the liquid waste flowing into the second chamber. An electric pump introduces oxygen, as the water enters the second chamber, causing aerobic decomposition- a process which encourages the growth of aerobic bacteria. It can break down compounds like nitrates in the liquid waste and digest the solid waste to an extent that the effluent becomes clean/suitable enough to be piped away to a nearby stream or ditch or an outlet such as a ground water soakaway which any kind of a sewage treatment plant setup requires. Remember you’ll need to cough up a one-time fee for a permit from the Environment Agency for releasing the effluent into the surroundings.

 

Searching for a sewage treatment plant company ? Talk to the experts at OMDI and see how they can help you get your mini treatment plant set up. With a ton of experience in this field, their team of experts will be more than happy to assist you with all things related to sewage treatment, right from design to installation and maintenance.

 

As one of the ‘greenest options’ that’s a lot kinder to the environment, setting up a treatment plant at your property may attract a heavy cost initially. That being said, from a maintenance perspective, it needs little looking after so you can save a lot more money in the long run with these treatment plants unlike cesspools and septic tanks which require the contents to be emptied periodically for them to function properly.

 

Septic Tanks

 

Last but not the least, septic tanks are also extremely popular among people living off-mains. The septic tank is almost the same as a treatment plant, but it involves anaerobic decomposition (a process that takes place in the absence of air). Chipping away at the waste, in this case, is the anaerobic bacteria. The solid waste sinks to the bottom and can be emptied out once in two years after it turns into a sludge. And the liquid waste runs off the top of the tank into some sort of a leach pit also known as a soakaway, where it again undergoes decomposition this time by the aerobic bacterial activity, and percolates into the ground.

 

Discussed above are some key options to consider, if you’re living off-mains. Talk to an industry expert about your situation, communicate your requirements clearly, and have them come down for a quick site visit, before you make any choice. You’ll thank yourself later.