UTILITIES - Septic Tank Installation

After 3 months of living without electricity and most importantly - sanitation, when our English "friend" arrived we were only too willing to believe the fairy story of how quickly it could be done. the thought of using a toilet again blurred the judgement, This and the fact that he spoke English almost led us into the trap that many English people fall into here - blindly believing someone because they speak the same language. "I'll definitely be there tomorrow" was becoming a bit wearing after four weeks and to cap it all a family of birds had nested in the septic tank.

I later discovered that the French builder he was using had problems with his excavator so instead of hiring one, he had his entire team working on fixing it. At the precise time I was being told that he would definitely be there tomorrow, the entire excavator was in pieces on a workshop floor somewhere in the Limousin and remained that way for some weeks!

Fortunately I bumped into Mark - who had initially found us the property and, appalled that the tank still wasn't installed, immediately came to the rescue and saved our marriage! He arranged for another friend, Chris, to bring his excavator the following weekend and the three of us rolled up our sleeves and installed the tank and pipework in a weekend. However, there were a few minor problems, 3 feet under the verdant grass at the front of the property was solid granite! The excavator wouldn't shift it so enter the air hammer for the remaining 4 feet! "C'est La Creuse, ce n'est pas facile!"


The tank was a standard 3000 litre which is, for practical purposes, the mimimum size you should consider, and is sufficient for two adults and four children. Note that the rules have changed and the installation of "Fosse Septiques" is much more strictly controlled. A lot of it is common sense (such as not installing a soakaway within 35 metres of a well), but some of the regulations are a little pedantic - I fail to see why there is a difference between using a 45 degree or a 90 degree bend in the vent pipe! The design of the "regards" or inspection chambers is also somewhat mystifying - the pipes connect a few inches up from the base, which means that solids tend to get trapped in there for some time before finally navigating their way to the tank. My simple solution was to contour the base of the regard in cement so that the waste could flow through without blocking. No doubt someone has a good reason for explaining this "design feature"!

Work on the installation commenced on the Saturday, scorching heat and hammering our way through 6 feet of granite to get the excavation large enough (had we thought to install it in the garden then we would have had 8 feet of pure soil (c'est la vie). Having lined the hole with a sand bed, and ensured that the tank was perfectly level, we filled it with water (rechecking regularly that the tank was staying level) before backfilling the excavation with more sand and soil.

Sunday dawned, and time to put all the pipework in to connect various parts of the property and to connect to the soakaway. Sod's law - we had torrential rain all day, which turned everything to mud and made the job a reasonably unpleasant one. By Sunday evening - soaked to the skin, we were able to take our first real shower and marvel at what we now considered the eighth wonder or the world - a flush toilet! I remember the day well - June 26th - my birthday.