Septic tanks
A topic that almost never arises in the overcrowded countries of northern Europe, but dominates our every waking moment in rural France, is septic tanks. Happy memories of simply using a toilet, or cleaning a sink, and thinking no more about it are distant memories.
France have introduced new and exciting regulations to help guide us through this minefield, and we must comply or our properties will be seized, we will be thrown into prison, and our children sent to a better place - where they are not exposed to the perils of an unsanitary waste system.
So that is what we have done. At great expense we have installed great concrete cisterns in the flowerbeds, and we have dug swimmming pool sized holes in the neighbours field and filled them with pipes, sand and gravel, to act as a filtration system.
The water we are ejecting into the environment is almost certainly cleaner than the water that gets delivered by the water authorities (although I would be reluctant to drink it) and any day now i expect to see trout and salmon in our little stream.
That is the good news. The bad news?
Well, the company who installed the system forgot to mention one little detail, and we forgot the same one little detail. The rules specify that a septic tank must be emptied once every four years. That makes good sense, I’m sure. But we have since built a house between the septic tank and the driveway. A distance of 40 metres separates the two, and has been beautifully planted with small trees and a couple of herbaceous borders. In four years it will look magnificent, I have no doubt.
Until the ’septic tank emptying team’ arrive in a big lorry and drive over the top of it. Yes we have completely overlooked the need to have future access to the septic tank. And I have already seen what a lorry driving across your garden can do to it, especially after heavy rain, following an earlier problem with the water authorities.
So what to do? Dig up the garden again, and install a driveway? Search for a company with a long pipe and a small lorry? Ignore the problem and hope it goes away (many septic tanks are, in practice, never emptied)?
As always I’m sure Mrs Boris will disagree with me, but the best solution of all is perhaps simply to stop using the toilet and the washing machine altogether, and only have a bath every three months. After all, until we moved in the property had none of those things anyway, and the family who lived here before must have managed somehow.
(See also www.francethisway.com/renovation/septictank.html for more information)
