Sewerage
Posted By Judith on 29th November 2015
‘Sewerage’ refers to the infrastructure that conveys sewage. It encompasses components such as receiving drains, manholes, pumping stations, septic tanks and storm overflows.
At Ravendale House we had a septic tank, our first experience of such a device, and to be honest it was real pain in the neck.
Even though we had it emptied regularly, it still caused us problems and we had regular ‘overflows’ of varying severity.
Extensive research lead us to the conclusion that the whole system had been put in by an amateur. The drains were too narrow and had ridiculous bends in them, just asking to be blocked up and the soak-away didn’t work.
We invested in drain rods, but these only worked to a point, being unable to get round the tight corners. Consequently we spent many happy afternoons up to our elbows in effluent.
When I say ‘we’, I really mean ‘me’ as, adorned in wellies and rubber gloves, I was usually the one who got to hold the shitty end of the stick. But no amount of protective gear can protect you from the smell, not even Peter could body-swerve that.
We even bought some ‘magic’ powder to put into the tank, which seemed to slow the problems down initially, but was by no means a long-term cure.
We were glad to see the back of it when we moved, and didn’t really give the drains much consideration when we bought ‘Grassy Bottom’, we just assumed, being in a village, it would be connected to the main sewer.
Imagine our surprise/horror when, amongst all the paperwork which seems to be obligatory in house purchases these days, we discovered that it wasn’t connected to the mains, it didn’t even have a septic tank, it had a cesspit!!
In my head the word ‘cesspit’ conjured up something vile smelling and medieval, but in actual fact all we have is a small manhole cover in the bottom corner of the garden.
Imagine our further surprise/horror/disbelief when Gladys’s son said that it had not been emptied in his life time, somewhere in the region of 50 years!!!
Could this really be true? 50 years?!! At Ravendale House we were lucky if we could do 50 weeks without a problem.
Well, it’s almost 2 years since we bought ‘Grassy Bottom’ and all I can say is, so far, so good.
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