Waste Disposal - into a Soak away!!!

[byways]

Not sure which forum to put this in, but..........

All gutters go into soak-aways.

On mains drainage. Only one exposed drain, and that has the kitchen waste, dishwasher and the recently added waste disposal unit feeding into it.  Never dreamt it was not connected to sewers. But it's on a soakaway Grrrrr! So eventually it's overflows when dishwasher on.

What are the options?

Dig up through middle of house? NO! Dig up patio, tarmac at side, tarmac at front to sewer about 50 metres? NO!

Dig new larger soak away?

Put some digester agent down to clear it all out?

Put the waste pipe into a filter to let it settle, overflow to soak away and contents to compost? Still have problem of choked up soakaway. Fiddly, and a bin in the 'posh' side of house!

Help. Ideas please.

[Brandon]

macerate and compost

[dhaslam]

The waste disposal unit would need to go.   You can compost uncooked vegetables and tea bags but cooked food and meat needs to go in the garbage.    You may be able to clear the soak pit if you can  find where the waste pipe goes into it.   It is probably blocked at that point.   It it isn't blocked then you would need to go deeper to have more capacity.   

[Brandon]

... but cooked food and meat needs to go in the garbage.   

an oft peddled myth.

(i am awaiting a barrage of smites)

http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/from-new-composter-to-poo-composter-a-green-garbage-guide/

http://www.guardianbooks.co.uk/images/products/insidelarge/1KHO_inside_l_166-169.pdf

an exerpt

The no-nos
  Although many books recommend it, I am reluctant to add
  the contents of my vacuum cleaner bag to my composter,
  because I know what kind of stuff my vacuum picks up, and
  some of it definitely isn’t compost-friendly – not least the
  amount of non-natural fibres and chemicals present in
  carpets and soft furnishings.
  Meat, dairy products and cooked food are best avoided
  by the home composter, because they attract vermin and
  flies.
  Dog and cat faeces can’t be added because they can contain
  dangerous organisms that won’t be killed by the decomposi-
  tion process. The same applies to human faeces (having said
  that, there is the ‘humanure’ movement dedicated to this
  rather specialised form of composting; Joseph Jenkins’
  Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human
  Manure explains how it all works).

If composting is done well then the former is I guess not the case, as good compost is no mistake, and the second will also be sorted.

For those who are yet to be educated, please read this:

http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html

All available for free online, so no excuses...

[Ivan]

We don't eat meat so none of that goes on our compost heap, but we do put all of our waste food including a fair bit of cooked food (can't get the kids to eat everything on their plate). It composts perfectly well, and I recently extracted the first compost to mulch the greenhouse with. So far we have mammoth lettices to prove it's good stuff.

[MR GUS]

My composting wormery consists of around 20 teabags per day mostly, am wondering when they (worms) are going to get up speed, that said though the wormery is much loved by our daughter, so far it's knocked our green waste for the council bins in half.

Perhaps bin the waste disposal & get a wormery!

[daftlad]

I am a little suprised the Plumbers havn't made a contribution.
I would think there are real issues putting brown water straight into the ground without it goung through a septic tank or something like that.
So i would guess that to comply with some regs or another you would need to get the water into the drain.
You could either dig trenches or stick a saniflo type pump in and go up and over (not really ideal)
So there you go.
where is Amy, she would normally have something to say?
laters

[PhatBob]

I trust that you are getting reduced water rates, we only found out the other day that we might be entitled to a reduction in out rates because of roof water draining to soak aways.

[byways]

Yes I applied for the reduced sewage rate because the surface water is into soakaways, it was when they came out to check my plans were correct and they put the dye down it was pretty clear that didnt go to drains either.  He kindly tried a plunger and that splashed water up the nearby downpipe, thus proving it was connected to that!

I doubt there are any issues with sink waste going into a soakaway, other than it will eventually get clogged up with lots of fines.

Built 20 years ago.  All the pipes to the nearest sewer are under tarmac or patio slabs, so a very expensive run.  We don't have much meat to dispose of, dogs wouldn't be happy, and mainly tea bags etc that we put down there, as I found they did not compost well at all.

[sleepybubble]

Saniflo.... use small diameter pipes to pump the grey water from the sink/dishwasher through to the sewer. Easier to install than putting 4" soil pipe though the fabric of the house.

[desperate]

Hi byways
can you not plumb the kitchen waste into the soil pipe from the bog?

Desp

[David]

On mains drainage. Only one exposed drain, and that has the kitchen waste, dishwasher and the recently added waste disposal unit feeding into it.  Never dreamt it was not connected to sewers. But it's on a soakaway Grrrrr! So eventually it's overflows when dishwasher on.

Get rid of the waste disposal unit. Compost vegetable matter and feed any meat into a Green Cone http://www.greencone.com/home.asp?lang=1 after you have boiled the bones and skin for stock.

If you stick to green kitchen products then put the drain into a plant system/reed bed. There will be information on-line or one is shown in the toolkit book you can buy from http://www.sci-scotland.org.uk/shop.shtml

[byways]

To go to the nearest loo is ripping out a vanity unit and possibly concrete floor, through an external type wall, ripping up wooden floor and concrete kitchen floor (lots of dust) even for a saniflow, only talking of a 2" pipe anyway, So not much different to the standard pipe?  We already compost all food that can, bu the problem already is occurring with the dishwasher alone.

A suggestion was to look at plans for house at building control. That should show where he sink was when built and how it was supposed to have been disposed of.  It is possible there is a blocked off pipe for some reason. Should also show where the soakaway is.  Digging that out enlarging possibly small septic tank as it is under lawn.  Or possibly a waste tank for solids and waste grey water only back into the drain. But it does not seem to be improving without out use, so I can only conclude it has got saturated over years (mainly before we purchased).

All are fairly expensive or less satisfactory options, so thanks for ideas, saves me overlooking any simple option if there was one! (Like a magic grime buster to decompose all that clogs up the soakaway!!!)

[David]

To go to the nearest loo is ripping out a vanity unit and possibly concrete floor, through an external type wall, ripping up wooden floor and concrete kitchen floor (lots of dust) even for a saniflow, only talking of a 2" pipe anyway, So not much different to the standard pipe?

I see that the recommended model for a kitchen is the Sanivite http://www.saniflo.co.uk/sanivite.aspx which discharges through 32mm pipe, rather than the traditional 22mm pipe. This model is presumably designed for higher temperatures.

Threading 32mm pipe through floors is much easier than larger pipe. As long as the floorboards run in the right direction it is often very easy to fit the pipes between floor and ceiling. With a macerator the pipe can go up to the next floor/loft and then "horizontally", which can be very useful.

I wouldn't install one as the first option, these days my first option would be the plants/reed bed I mentioned, but provided they are looked after properly they can be very useful in difficult solutions. It seems from the photograph that there is plenty of space for a planter/reed bed. The one I mentioned was made with re-used materials. For example it uses an old nylon stocking to filter out bits and then the water flows through a series of baffles under/through the plant roots. Hot water appears to be no problem, though you would have to use environmentally friendly products for washing dishes and clothes.

[desperate]

Hi byways

My guess is that there must be a connection for the grey water to the sewer somewhere local to the kitchen/bathroom, maybe it has been blocked off at some time. I dont think you should put any grey water into a soakaway as it will eventually fester up a stink     The work you describe to lay a new drain doesn,t sound as bad as dealing with a foul soakaway. How old is your house? do you know if there has been any previous biulding works carried out?

Desperate