This looked a lot smaller (and lighter) on the internet!
This looked a lot smaller (and lighter) on the internet!
Right from day one we understood the hall had no land, no services and little chance of getting planning permission for use as a dwelling, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t ever be useful or comfortable. So, after some back-of-a-fag-packet engineering planning, I figured out a way to hold the waste water internally in a sufficiently large enough tank to make it useful for long stays between emptying and so the search was on. The tank I settled on from Tanks UK was a heavy duty roto-moulded version with a few inlet’s including one for a level sensor and an inspection hatch and drain valve. Not entirely the off-the-shelf option I was hoping for but given the constraints of the buildings footprint, the levels and the fact no land was available for sale to site a septic tank, this would be the way forward. Now, just the small task of getting it inside the building.
Plan A consists of me and a very, very helpful delivery driver manhandling the tank, including the pallet attached to its bottom off the lorry and around the back of the hall. My idea is, to open the temporary rear doors, put some surplus timber up as a ramp and slide the tank uphill until it tops out over the edge and into the lounge area. It was all looking very promising and possible until five minutes in, when the heavens opened drenching me, the tank, the ramp and the ground all around me.
Looking like Sisyphus pushing my very own boulder forever uphill, my feet slid backwards, the tank stayed still and the rain kept on coming.
So, plan B. Put the scaffolding up in levels and lift it up, then push it closer to the opening, lift it again and then into the opening. Unfortunately, it’s no use and I simply can’t lift it high enough without it slipping and I don’t want to risk damaging it, so I leave it in the rain and make a coffee. Everything seems more possible when you’re dry and holding a hot drink, so this is currently the best idea I’ve had so far.
Plan C. From the deepest recesses of my memory, I remember something from my Engineering HND days about pulleys and so, seeing as I had only managed to move the tank a total of 1 metre since I started, I figured I’d give it a go. Attaching special offer ALDI roof rack straps around the tank and the other end to a couple of spare pallet’s, I suddenly had the equivalent of someone pulling uphill. With the ramps sloping up onto the scaffolding and a little encouragement (wiggling and swearing!) we start to get somewhere and twenty minutes later, the tank is up and inside the building.
It’s late afternoon before Donald’s son Tom is available to help me lower the tank into the cellar but another half an hour later, we’re done and the tank is in place, ready for my next brilliant idea!
