Treating waste sewage from a holiday home, or home which will be used infrequently can be problematic. It’s important to get it right to avoid bad smells poor discharge quality.
Sewage treatment plants rely on the growth of aerobic bacteria to feed upon and digest contaminants in waste water, thereby converting harmful ammonia into less harmful nitrites and making the water safe for discharge into the environment. Bacteria in sewage treatment plants, like any living organism, require some fundamental conditions to stay alive. These are:
A holiday let or private holiday home can will not always be used consistently, therefore it is unlikely the waste coming from the property will flow as regularly as a normal home. This can be problematic for sewage treatment plants.
In the event that your holiday let, or holiday home cannot connect to a mains sewer, you must treat the water onsite and discharge it to the environment (normally the preferred option is a river or ditch)
A holiday let sewage treatment system needs to be able to cope with these fluctuations. But can they?
In short, not always. Since sewage treatment systems rely on bacteria for the treatment process, Regular nutrition for this Bacteria is fundamental to a sewage treatment plant, and having a system which is infrequently used, such as in a holiday home, may lead to difficulty in the growth of bacteria.
Some energy-free treatment plants are less reliant on constant flow due to their filter material acting as a capillary, effectively pulling water through to cleanse it. This is however not a trait of all energy-free systems. Some require very heavy air flows to maintain oxygen levels. They can however be advantageous in holiday home applications.
Flow balancing can also be employed. SBR technology is ideal in helping to balance short-term peaks and troughs, but long-term periods of no use will plague most treatment plants.
Another option for holiday homes is to use a septic tank and soakaway, this allows is using the ground as a filter, you must of course check the EA General binding rules to ensure you are ok to do this and you must test to see if the ground is capable of taking the water.
If you have a holiday home requiring a sewage treatment plant, contact Owls Hall technical team who can help ensure you receive the right product for your building. We’ll take into account all aspects of the system to help ensure it works consistently well.
