How others have solved their problems:
Private Home, Dormston, near Inkberrow, Worcestershire
At this private home, where the owners do a lot of entertaining, even replacing and extending the soakaway drains failed to produce an adequate means of disposing of the septic tank effluent. The water simply wouldn’t soak away into the heavy clay soil which quickly clogged up on their almost flat site and produced a smelly boggy area.
A Cress Water three-stage flat-site reed-bed system with one vertical flow stage and two large horizontal flow reed-beds, designed for a total of 12 persons, provided an ideal solution for these wildlife and pond enthusiasts. The cleaned water from the reed-bed is used to successfully fill a large pond now inhabited by a variety of species including dragon flies and newts.
St Cloud Nursing Home, Callow End, near Worcester
The old septic tank system of the large country house converted for use into a Nursing Home, was no longer able to cope with the extra loadings. The leach fields were saturated and effluent was breaking out over the ground producing a nasty smelly boggy area. In addition, the local planning authorities were making their approval of the owner’s plans to develop the property and increase the number of residents conditional on the installation of a suitable sewage treatment system.
Situated on the side of a hill the site lent itself perfectly to the installation of one of Cress Water’s 3 stage gravity driven reed-bed systems designed to cater for 68 person equivalents. A tight consent was obtained from the Environment Agency to discharge the cleaned effluent to a ditch that only has running water in it during the winter months. So far, there has never been any discharge from the system: the cleaned effluent from the reed-bed system, after passing through a small shallow pond, planted with a variety of marsh plants, soaks away into the ground through a series of swale ditches in a large general wetland area.
The Marsh Country Hotel, Eyton, near Leominster
Reported by a neighbour for polluting the small stream that passed through their property, the owners suddenly found themselves threatened with prosecution by the National Rivers Authority (now the Environment Agency). Historically the old crumbling set of farm buildings, which had been renovated into a small 5-star hotel, had discharged the effluent from their septic tank directly into the stream, as many older rural properties still do. After much heartache and finding very little assistance forthcoming from various bodies the owners discovered the services we at Cress Water provide.
To solve the problem we designed a flat-site combination system, using two small pumping stages, to cater for a maximum number of 24 people in the hotel. With the owners doing most of the work and engaging various local contractors, including ourselves, for some of the more specialised jobs, they were able to install a system at a fraction of the cost they were quoted for the installation of a package treatment plant. At the same time they added an attractive feature to their garden. On a summer’s afternoon, their guests could take tea on the lawn and have no idea they were sitting beside the Hotel’s sewage treatment plant!
Bicton College of Agriculture and Bicton Park Gardens Visitor Centre, near Exeter
Down on the farm the effluent from three septic tanks, serving 30 student residences and the Visitors Centre and Cafeteria, had been discharging for many years to the head of a long ditch leading to a small tributary of the river Otter. Sewage effluents from sources of this type are stronger than normal and typically have a much higher level of ammonia. It was only a matter of time before the National Rivers Authority (now the Environment Agency) traced the source of pollution found in the river back to this ditch.
Faced with the need to rectify the situation, the trustees chose to install a CRESS WATER gravity driven three-stage combination reed-bed system combined with a pond flanked on either side by wetland areas. The pond, fitted with a three-stage Flowform to aerate and recirculate the water, coupled with the wetland areas, polishes the effluent to a consistently high quality. Designed for a total population of 145 person equivalents the system, which is capable of handling up to 750 visitors a day to the Park Gardens, provides a very satisfactory and attractive solution to a smelly problem.
