[Cob] Septic permits and Building Codes

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003, Taylor Publishing-DirtCheapBuilder wrote:

[snip]
>  YOU may be careful, but trust me, there are some real slobs ou tthere
> who don't care where human waste goes.  this is a public safety hazard,
> especially if it contaminates streams, other people's drinking water,
> farm water, etc...you can see how e-coli could be a problem downstream.
[snip]

There is a miscnception implied by the above which is that the
conventional permited septic system is safe (or at least safer than any of
the alternatives), they are not.  Average life of a drain field is about
20 years at which time your waste water will backup and start running
over the surface of the ground (with all the contamination problems
mentioned above), in addition, it is not uncommon for the outlet pipe on
the septic tank to get plugged considerably more often with the same
result (usually a result of not getting the tank pumped soon enough).
It is also important to note that once your septic tank is pumped, in many
jurisdictions, it is simply trucked to the waste water treatment plant for
the nearest town, and many of these plants are responsible for large scale
contamination of nearby rivers and lakes (poor design, overflow during
rain storms, and inadequate understanding of what constitutes
contamination).

The safest solution is a constucted wetland designed for this purpose as
there is nothing to maintain or fail, otherwise, some type of toilet which
makes the waste completely safe to handle at the time it is removed (such
as incinerating toilets and some of the better composting toilet designs),
along with a separate grey water system.  Some commercial composting
toilets are probably the best option for avoiding the cost of a full
blown septic system in a fully permitted cob home, since some of the
manufacturers have been willing to work with people and inspectors to get
it through the permit process.

NOTE: A primary cause of drain field failure is lint build up, mostly from
laundry, which is another good reason to separate grey water and/or use
a washing machine without an agitator (such as machines with horizontal
drums which don't have agitators and generate far less lint).

Okay, even Coblist Kahuna does an occasional off topic post.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
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