After 9 years of using thick bleach in the cassette 😮

[gpat]

"The Baby" is now the wrong side of 30, so this was a while back, so terry nappies would have been the "in thing" in the early 1990's

The houses were all old, (parents house was originally 1700's), even the 'new' house next door would have been mid Victorian.

I think the original cess pit would have been fed using slate lined culverts deliberately designed not to be waterproof leading to a single pit shared between the houses, filled with beach pebbles.
It may have been dry stone walled, again designed to slowly leak.

In the 30 years that my parents lived there as far as I remember this was never pumped out or cleaned.
I guess everyone knew not to use powerful chemicals or bleach down the loo.

Remember before the late 70's, most houses did not have a washing machine, that is what the laundry or laundrette was for. (I bought my first one in about 1994)

When the cess pit was killed off, there was no easy way to restart it, as by this time an area of the field below the houses had turned into a stinking swamp.

The only solution was to dig it all out
(They had to come to legal agreement with the farmer, lay a metal track across the field for the for the digger and multiple lorry loads of earth and pebbles and rock out,)

Then install 4 x plastic septic tanks side by side but far enough apart (The trench was vast, big swimming pool size), then lay 4 x plastic sewer lines across the field and plumb into 4 x houses.

In the meantime whilst all the work was going on each house had to have a tank on a trailer that pumped up the sewage and got replaced every week or two.

As far as I know, my parents had to pay for it all.

So when someone says don't put bleach down the loo, this is what can happen .....

I'm a bit confused because there isn't any biological treatment in a cess pit and therefore the bleach can't do any harm. Are you sure it wasnt a septic tank?

 

[The Wino]

I'm a bit confused because there isn't any biological treatment in a cess pit and therefore the bleach can't do any harm. Are you sure it wasnt a septic tank?

I must admit I get confused by the terms I know one is basically a container that gets pumped out and the other has microorganisms that break down poo etc that soaks away .
Just looked them up luckily I did get it the right way around!

 

[The Wino]

The what about cesspits second post is just a classic forum early diversion

The thread takeaway is bleach doesn’t appear to harm the cassette or seals like the makers threaten And thick and thin bleach can be bought for pennies.

As for septic tanks yes bleach is a killer but is no more dangerous than the blue chemicals that most motorhomers still use.

Even if you regularly use an eco cesspit friendly tank additive, ( and you should) it’s nice to know that if bleach doesn’t harm your cassette its a cheap way to deep clean it now and again.

Just checked no mention of cesspits in the second post! I do get them confused though. The reason I mentioned the septic tank is my sil lives in a village in France the village had no mains drains until 10 years or so ago they were very careful about what people put in the septic tank.

 

[Brains]

OK, not sure the exact difference between a cess pit and a septic tank.

From memory (30+ years ago) it was a big circular hole in the ground about 3-4m across and 3-4m deep across.
It was lined with dry stone walling and filled with beach pebbles.
It was covered with big slate slabs and then had a foot of soil and grass on top, so there was no sign of it's existence on the surface unless you knew it was there.
As far as I know it was never emptied out in 30+ years.

The problem came about as the bacteria were killed off, the entire bottom of the field became a soggy stinking swamp and tonnes of soil had to be dug out and the mess pumped out.

What it was replaced by was 4 x plastic tanks about 3m high and about the same wide which were bottle shaped with the open end of the bottle being a manhole cover.
These were placed along the field boundary so the pump tanker could stop on the lane.
These had to be pumped out every year or so.

 

[scotjimland]

The main difference is that a cesspit does not have an outlet and a septic tank does. The wastewater in septic tanks needs to be separated before it flows to the outlet and only discharges to the ground (not to streams or watercourses). A cesspit is a holding tank that can’t discharge.

ASL Limited blog article | What’s the difference between cesspits and septic tanks?

The main difference is that a cesspit does not have an outlet and a septic tank does. The wastewater in septic tanks needs to be separated before it flows to the outlet and only discharges to the ground (not to streams or watercourses). A cesspit is a hol

www.asllimited.co.uk

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[gpat]

OK, not sure the exact difference between a cess pit and a septic tank.

From memory (30+ years ago) it was a big circular hole in the ground about 3-4m across and 3-4m deep across.
It was lined with dry stone walling and filled with beach pebbles.
It was covered with big slate slabs and then had a foot of soil and grass on top, so there was no sign of it's existence on the surface unless you knew it was there.
As far as I know it was never emptied out in 30+ years.

The problem came about as the bacteria were killed off, the entire bottom of the field became a soggy stinking swamp and tonnes of soil had to be dug out and the mess pumped out.

What it was replaced by was 4 x plastic tanks about 3m high and about the same wide which were bottle shaped with the open end of the bottle being a manhole cover.
These were placed along the field boundary so the pump tanker could stop on the lane.
These had to be pumped out every year or so.

From a distance it sounds to me that it was a problem that had nothing to do with bleach and more to do with not emptying the cess pits often enough.

 

[Simonnsj]

I have to say we have been using bleach in our loo cassette too - even the so called best blue or green loo chems allow limescale to build up but bleach (Domestos is the best) keeps the cassette very clean. As to the question of septic tanks it clearly states on the side of the bottles that it is safe for using in septic tanks....