Maintaining your private sewage treatment system
Maintaining your private sewage treatment system is one of the conditions of your registration. This is important to prevent pollution.
If your property has a private sewage treatment system, it is your responsibility to maintain it. This includes any pipes going to and from the systems and any outfall pipes.
If your property has a shared private sewage treatment system, responsibility for maintaining it will be shared with you and your neighbours that are connected to it.
To maintain your system and ensure it works properly, you should:
- Empty or de-sludge the system on a regular basis. This should be done at least once a year.
- If your sewage treatment system is a package treatment plant, this must be maintained on a regular basis following the manufacturer's instructions. This should be done by a competent qualified person, like a service engineer. Visit the British Water website for a list of accredited service technicians.
- Check that any pipes that discharge into a burn, river, or the sea are intact.
- Check soakaways are draining are draining properly and not blocked (for example, there are no pools of sewage around the soakaways).
- Prevent any water or runoff form entering the system. This includes rainwater that has collected in the surrounding area. Extra water entering your sewage system can stop the treatment process working properly and cause pollution.
- Fix any leaks, problems with warning lights and power and pump failure as soon as possible.
- Only use your system for toilet waste and washing water and use cleaning products that are safe for use with these types of systems.
- Don't dispose of grease or cooking oil into your system. If you have a café or hotel with a commercial kitchen, consider using a grease trap to stop fats, oil, and grease from entering your sewage system.
Visit the British Water website for information on maintenance of septic tanks and package treatment plants.
Seasonal use of private sewage treatment systems
Seasonal use of properties, camping, and caravan sites can result in changes to how often or how much sewage goes through your sewage treatment system. For example, in the summer a campsite might have a lot of visitors using the facilities, but in the winter there will be less use due to fewer visitors or the site might close completely. Changes to the volume of sewage flowing through your system can affect how it works.
If you have a package treatment plant, you can help prevent problems during high flow periods by installing two or more units. This means as use increases and more sewage enters the system, you can increase the number of units in operation to match the demand. During periods of low flow, you can recirculate the effluent, so sewage flows through the system to keep the bacteria that help breakdown the sewage healthy.
If you have no flow through your system for art of the year, you might want to temporarily shut it down. Please note that restarting systems can cause pollution at start up. If you're unsure how to restart your system, you should get technical advice from a qualified person, following manufacturer's instructions.
Visit the British Water website for information on accredited service technicians.
Related items
- British Water website for information on maintenance of septic tanks and package treatment plants.
- Check if your private sewage treatment system is registered.
- Private sewage treatment system registration guidance.
- Service level statement for small-scale private sewage treatment systems.