Oh the glamour!
Oh the glamour!
If you’ve read this far you’ll probably have figured out by now that, being largely off-grid might have thrown up its own share if challenges and you’d be right. The main one, which over a million septic tank owners will be familiar with is the periodic pump-out of the settling tank.
Given we aren’t connected to the mains sewage system and don’t have any land to site a septic tank we had to think slightly further outside the box than most and opted for what I can only describe as a huge elsan system. The toilet flows to a macerator which lifts the waste aroud 1m and into a 2500L holding tank in the cellar. This then needs pumping out through a 3″ flexi hose which itself, is fed through a 4″ pipe connected to the tank, which comes through the southern gable end wall, to a screw cap. It’s a bit more complicated than we would have liked and, after nothing appeared to be getting to the macerator, we had to do a lot of test flushing trying to find the optimal angle for the soil pipe, so we have accidentally filled the tank already. Which is where Shift**IT (yes, that’s their actual name!) come in.
We’ve booked them in for a suction and, a few hundred pounds later, they get the tank empty, I find the optimal angle for the soil pipe and we’re finally able to poop with confidence, knowing the macerator will finally be able to do it’s thing.