Septic tanks & reed beds - How to construct reed beds

[jake54]

Hello everyone
We move into a property about a month ago
The waste system is on a septic tank
About a fortnight ago I started clearing the topsoil to put in a temp drive.
When placing the topsoil out of the way in the corner of the garden/field, one of the dumper wheels sank into the earth.
We got the dumper out.
The hole where the dumpr wheel went down was very soft.
It felt like there was nothing underneath, anyhow some days later I noticed this smell and where The dumper left this deep track, it had filled with a cloudy liquid.

I checked The inspection chamber and found it filled a 1/4 of the way up so what must of happen was when the dumper sank down it must of blocked the end of the outlet
I moved the digger over to the spot and started excavating
And then all the liquid from the septic tank came out
I dug down about a metre and along for a metre or more and left it fill up. the problem is it's not draining away very well so i'll have to make the hole bigger, place membrane down and around, add chipping etc so forth an so on. Then I read somewhere about
'reed beds' and what they do etc, etc.
Because the area where the outlet ends and the surrounding area is very wet anyway I was thinking of constructing a 'reed bed'
So my question is
Would any of you good people know how to construct a 'reed bed' the pro's & con's the do's and don'ts
Any help would be much appreciated
Thanks
Jake

[flowjoe]

Are you sure you need a reed bed ? Sounds like you might just need to put in a decent soak-away.

On the few occasions i have dealt with reed beds they were to clean up the waste product of treatment plants before they discharge into water courses, rivers etc, something to do with ammonia levels i think, and on every occasion these were large capacity tanks for hotels, country clubs and the like.

The first job is to check out the existing soak-away system serving the septic tank, it might just need extending or cleaning.

[jake54]

Thank's for replying flowjoe
From what info the previous owner gave me is that the septic tank is about 3/4 years old
It's a larger tank that serves three househoulds
There is no room to extend, (It's right on the boundary). Except maybe comming back along side the outlet run with a much wider trench
What do ya think?
Any advice/suggestions would be well appriciated
The reed bed was just a bit of an fancy idea.
Thanks
Jake

[TheRobster]

How is the sceptic tank emptied at the moment? If you have it emptied by a tanker and you want to change this into a soakaway system for the effluent then you may need a discharge consent to do this. You should contact the Environment Agency and ask them what is required. Also you'd still have the problem of what to do with the solid waste (a soakaway would only take care of the liquid component of the waste....you'd still have all the turds to deal with. :p)

A reedbed system could probably be made to work but it's a complicated solution for a single dwelling.

Isn't there a local sewer system that you can connect to?

[flowjoe]

If its a septic tank you have then you will have a soak-away of some description, and a tank serving three properties will deal with a good volume of water, and any tank is only as good as its outfall.

Find the extent of the existing soak-away, dig some trial holes and carry out tests to see how suitable the ground is for the type of tank/volume you have.

I would normally install a good size herringbone soak-away if you have the room and the ground is suitable, if not you will have to look at converting your existing tank into a treatment plant so that the water is clean enough to be pumped to an outfall such as a ditch, brook, river.

Incidentally where does your storm water go ?