Sewage system - tight fit

magnethead

Hi There,
please see the diagram below, I live in a town that had been promised to be connected to the sewage treatment plant(finished 10 years ago)...Anyway, you know how fast government contracts move, so I have to waste 10K on a sewage system even though there is sewage pipe outside my future front door (Blue line on road marked with F)


Can you please tell me if I can place the sewage system here? My sisters house (Green outline) is in an identical plot at the bottom, I copied her sewage system up..into my vacant plot to get an Idea of wasted space by this system.
Rules I know:
system must be 3M from boundry lines, 7M from dwellings

PROBLEM is, because the nearest Storm water connection point (see the pink line on road marked SW) was just outside my plot, I let her come across my land with her rainwater discharge(see red LINE) ...otherwise she would have to dig up half the road trying to reach that point from her plot.

Have I screwed myself being a good Samaritan? Will this stop me putting in that sewage system there?

Thanks for your sagely advice

Metric Tensor

To answer your direct question - there should be no major problems with a surface water sewer passing near the treatment plant provided everything is installed correctly and in line with the various rules and regulations. That's not to say that the LA might take a different view.

An advised practice would be that the surface water sewer is at a higher level than the foul water sewers and system so that an overflow from the foul system does not contaminate the surface water system. (There is an alternative line of though that would say the exact opposite is true - but that argument is for a different day!)

In general, however, trying to fit effluent treatment systems of any type of domestic town centre sites is fraught with difficulties so your engineer has his/her work cut out for them getting this one to fly with the LA. Having said that your sister clearly achieved it!

magnethead

Thanks for your reply, It makes me feel like there's hope, but the LA did give my sister hell about the treatment plant...I can't remember the details but they had to employ an Engineer to come with them to one of their meetings to 'Educate' the local authority that this system did meet the spec/requirements.

LA lost face a bit, and made her do 'shadow studies' and other nonsense for showing them up.... I can get the details if your interested.

But I'm not looking forward to the meeting with them.

and the fact that this nonsense seriously restricts the house build is maddening!!

You see the By-Pass system on my sisters unit, she has to flick a switch in (maybe 2 years time) and the system becomes useless!!
The contract has been accepted for the sewage linkage and they should begin works this month apparently.....but I can't wait 2 years to build

Thanks again

Metric Tensor

I suggest you strongly consider employing the same engineer as your sister - they will have the background info and will know how they got your sister's one over the line.

magnethead

Good advice, Thank you

murphaph

What about sharing your sister's system until the sewer main is connected? Enough capacity? Could hers be upgraded (assuming she's willing to return a favour) if the capacity is not there?

BryanF

murphaph wrote: »

What about sharing your sister's system until the sewer main is connected? Enough capacity? Could hers be upgraded (assuming she's willing to return a favour) if the capacity is not there?

Though one to get past the council?

murphaph

BryanF wrote: »

Though one to get past the council?

Honestly I have no idea how they would react to that. Could be a total non-runner from a planning perspective even if it works technically. The OP's sister's engineer would be the person to call I guess.

magnethead

Jesus, This is why I love Boards.ie

I never thought of that, but the council are used to planning judge and jury here..:D....This would JUST KILL ME, technically feasible but, NO we won't accept it because, we have planning "Rules" to apply here!!

I'll check that out, -snip- was the architect and I think he acted(or sorted out the Eng also)...It was a turn key build..

Thanks again Guys!!

cocoman

Out of interest where is the percolation area in your sisters site? This is the area where the wastewater is discharged into the ground if there is no connection to the public sewer?
The percolation area also has to be a certain distance from buildings, boundaries, etc.

magnethead

AS far as I know, there is none, the waste system does all the processing and then pumps it into the sewer....there is a by pass switch when it is no longer needed..
I'll be down in her house in 15 minutes and find out for sure, the husband will know.

Angry bird

So the existing sewer system serving the town is at or over capacity, and plans have been in place to connect to a 10 year old sewer treatment plant in a neighbouring town, or that's my reading of it. I wouldn't hold out much optimism for Irish Water proceeding with that, their baby now, but that's just a general observation. I doubt you'll get planning to connect to your sisters treatment system so you're left with sorting it out with the area engineer/environment section of the Council. Rock and hard place comes to mind.

Metric Tensor

From what I can see the sister's plant treats the wastewater to a certain standard and then discharges to the public sewer. This will have a two fold effect:

1. It reduces the organic loading on the town treatment plant.
2. It possibly acts as a buffer, delaying and possibly levelling out the release of effluent into the town system thus reducing the hydraulic loading of the sister's house on the system during peak times.

It's a methodology sometimes employed by some large industrial developments to reduce the charges they incur for their effluent (Polluter Pays Principle)

As I said the engineer did well to negotiate this with the LA and as AB says above will be a legend if he can now negotiate it with both the LA and IW!

magnethead

Thanks AngryBird, you are reading the situation clearly.....

Cocoman, there is no percolation area at all, It's like Metric said, just gets processed and dumped into the sewer....

It's called a 'Bio-Cycle' unit...Just found out...Might not be the same thing as a standard sewage system