Big day today. Septic tank going in. All hands on deck. Except me. I was foreman and well, drank tea! Someone has to keep an eye on health and safety from a safe distance!

Ah that was a lovely cuppa!

My friends sent messages of congratulations as we had to use a bucket for our first year here and then managed to afford a caravan toilet and went a bit upmarket in year two. You just have no idea how wonderful it is to sit down to do what mother nature requires, when your used to proper facilities.

The fosse septic is a Tricel. It’s a compact septic that just has be set approx 2 metres from the barn. Hole dug, the infill is simply sand or a mix of clay sand and grit which we had from prior building work.

An exit pipe comes from barn and a ventilation pipe is added. The exit pipe heads down to the mains for clean water to be discharged. No garden needs to be excavated. No reed beds or filtration systems. It’s compact and suited to our needs. As there is just the two of us and we are a sad pair with few visitors, the system will cope easily with maybe a clean out ever couple of years.

All that shows after installation is a small green inspection lid. I shall stick a pot plant on top of course!

Another small system we looked at was Ecoflow. Very good but a little costly. It’s very compact and again no extra filtration systems needed. As we have room for a bigger system, the Tricel was a cheaper but just as efficient option.

Just need to make sure SPANK (septic tank government authority overseeing conformity and installations and upgrades) is happy. Be prepared for them to be ruthless and give penalties if you fail to conform or carry out works required by a given deadline. Old concrete fosse systems usually at the rear of a building are no longer authorised. Your local mayor may, like ours did, give you a two year window to use this until you have the funds to upgrade. In our case with the new septic in place, we are still allowed to use the old one for our little house in a non-sewerage capacity, being just for washing up water or hand washing clothes. Perfect for us as the distance between our two buildings would mean a pump and a bigger septic if we used a toilet in the Little House. Honestly I can hold my pee for a hundred yards to make the barn bathroom!

Happy fossing everyone!