Do your future self a favour.

Have you got a private sewage system and live near a river or have a high water table?

Are you aware of the ground around your drainage field (historically referred to as a soakaway) or a discharge; do you realise it has turned black like oil because of a lack of oxygen?

We are not trying to police pollution, but we want to show you a different angle with a winning outcome for you AND the environment. Showing you how to get the most out of your system for the least cost in the long term.

At ASL Limited, we, as drainage experts, are trying to educate property owners about their private sewage systems to save continual pollution. We are drainage experts who can see where drainage systems fail, our intention is drawn via complaints from the neighbours, or when owners are selling the house, buyers of property today, especially in the country, arrange a house purchase survey.

See more on house purchase surveys.

If your private sewage system was polluting, would you want to fix it, or would you instead put up with unnecessary problems and then eventually [after several years] put in a new efficient treatment plant discharging clean water for the incoming new owners?

Some reasons for the above problems don’t show themselves until it’s too late, and the cost caused by the high water table to maintain them is realised.

Some of the causes of pollution to the ground or into rivers and streams from private sewage systems are:

• Surface water getting into the system.
• A build-up of fat, grease and oil breaches the separation walls, negating the separation system Pushing raw sewage into the wrong chamber 
• Simply not emptying a tank often enough will exacerbate the pollution
• Regular overuse for the size of the system will leave: No space for separation.
• See our blog on how we and why we empty septic tanks or Treatment Plant

The law, in simple terms, states that discharging wastewater from a septic tank without effective secondary treatment to the ground is polluting. This would happen in areas near a river with a high water table. In these cases, you would need to upgrade your septic tank to a treatment plant.

Yes, there are various dates before which some systems may be exempt from the latest rules. However, they are bound by the generic statement “as long as it’s not polluting”. 

No one should have a license to pollute.

So if it were found to be polluting, then it would still be breaking the law, and as the operator of that system, the responsibility would fall to you.

How does that impact you?

Financially, this will have a significant impact. 

• You could pay to have a clogged system emptied more often than a fully working one. 
• Due to the water table being too high, sewage from the toilet can’t get to the tank because of water in the pipe from the high water table.
• When your discharge point (drainage field/soakaway) seems to be completely clogged, and you start to notice the bad smells, prompts you to call an emergency drainage service when in fact, it’s the high water table, causing the drains to malfunction even days or weeks after the high-Water table has gone down.
• When the discharge gets clogged, it will back up in the pipe up to and around the house itself and potentially, pipes need extensive maintenance or even replacement. 
• If it backs up enough that in the system, you risk flooding your land or your home with raw sewage, and the water damage alone could cost extensively; some homeowners decide to sell the property because they’ve lost their confidence in a private system

These things never happen at ‘convenient’ times, so maintaining this well-designed system (but in the wrong place or the wrong ground) has cost more than 50% of putting in the correct system: Not to mention the inconvenience of having emergency tankers, unnecessary, blocked drains, diggers and works crews onsite to maintain or keep it going against all the odds. 

Your future self will thank you for it!

We at ASL Limited benefit from emptying tanks of fat, grease and oil, more often than should be required, but we are trying to inform you of the problems it causes because it makes your private sewage system less efficient and shortens its lifespan.

We are truly sharing this information for your benefit. 

It’s hard to believe that a hotel could be polluting every day for 20 years without knowing it! Or a household could be blissfully unaware that if they haven’t had their tank emptied for 3 years, there is no way it can be functioning correctly and will most definitely be polluting!

This is why we explain how you can avoid these problems and give your future self something to be thankful for.