Biocycle or biobull ?

[Goldfreak]

Are biocycles really good for the environment or is that just crap ? When you factor in the electricity it uses and the on going mantainence/chemicals compared to a properly installed septic tank that can work for decades. Sorry mods I understand this will be a rather oop: topic layful:

 

[Bush Chook]

My understanding was that a septic tank works BECAUSE it facilitates a biocycle?
Or is that just crap too?

 

[Ded Driver]

close to where i live are ~5acre blocks upslope but close to an Estuary. It is a requirement of building approval to include one of these 'biocycle' self-contained sewage treatment units, primarily to stop contaminants entering the Estuary, as they discharge near pure water.

 

[user 14190]

We live on 5 acres of cleared around the house area and the remainder (around 2/3rds) is still undergrowth and large trees. Have live here for around 25 years. We put in the septic tank system when we built, all approved by council. About 15 years ago the Council started checking on septic systems to ensure that they were working properly and one rule was that the tank had to be pumped prior to their visit, but the Company doing the pumping was not contactable except through Council to ensure that the work was done, this created a larger problem for Council as at the back of our block there is a rather large area that is the early 1900's was drawn up as a plan for a subdivision, but was never taken any further, around the time we were buying our block a developer found the plans and started selling the blocks with the promise that building approval would be easy to get (took around 26 years) so there were a lot of houses and various types of dwelling all with illegal septics who could not get them pumped because of the Council rule, so you would hear a pump running and then the stench would be in the air for days when they pumped them onto the ground and into creeks to get rid of it. Eventually Council saw the light and allowed contact with the Contractor.

There are normally only two of us here and the water from the washing machine is used on the grass, with Council approval. Our soil is heavy clay and the only thing we have had to do in the 25 years was increase the size of the soak-away from one trench of 25 meters to two trenches of 30 meters as apparently the soil in the original trench had become 'clogged' over the years so we can now switch between the new trenches. We never see any liquid on the surface and now get approval for 5 years when the Council inspects. Our son has the bio-cycle and is always having trouble with the pump or agitator and the ongoing costs.

The reason for the top paragraph was that we have a waterway that runs into Jervis Bay and testing of the creek by Council showed high levels of oop: in the water and they were testing all the legal systems, but when it was suggested that they check the dwelling at the back of us where the problem was occurring the reply was "Unable to do that because it would make them legal"

 

[Goldfreak]

My brother has a biocycle and hates it. He has to truck in tonnes of mulch now to irrigate the Gray water into because the initial soil test varies from the latest one. I think the biocycle system makes sense if you are near a water course but he has 20acres of cow paddock full of cow oop: below him. He chose the biocycle root to be more environmentally minded but now regrets it.

 

[Goldfreak]

I wonder if it would be better to incinerate every thing at ultra high temperatures ?

 

[Gilly47]

had a septic system for 35 years in the wollondilly shire, 2 large trenches and had a few issues with Heavy rain.

pumped the solids once, should have done it more often. caught all other water in a tank and pumped it to an area above the house that used to be a clay patch, it grew nice kikuyu which absorbed all the water.

installed the septic system myself and when the council asked everyone to register their tank, I
did so. Never had an inspection, just paid the licence $'s to run a septic system

:argh:

ray