Self-cleaning Septic Tank Filter

Septic Tank Filter for Tank and Cesspool

Charlie has a successful market garden near London. The soil is rich and he grows a variety of salads, vegetables and cut flowers. He’s been using Rotorflush filters at Laleham Farm for many years for a variety of applications. This is his experience of using our self-cleaning septic tank filter with a septic tank and cesspool.

Charlie bought his Rotorflush in the noughties; regular filter maintenance every 6 months or so and taking care not to dry run the pump has meant that it still gives him great service. The pump cost about £900 pounds when he bought it – he saved £1200 in disposal costs in the first year. Here’s how……..

Seasonal workers come and go on the farm and typically there are around 20 on site; accommodation is basic but comfortable. Sanitary facilities are adequate but a long way from mains drainage. Waste water and sewage is managed by a combination of cesspool and septic tank.

There is a large cesspool on the farm dating back 100 years. A cesspool is a sealed underground tank where sewage is stored until emptied by a tanker vehicle. Typically, a tank serving a family of four is likely to need one tanker load removed every two weeks or so, to prevent it from overflowing.

Perhaps 100 years ago this was less of an issue but in the 21st century a cesspool servicing up to 20 seasonal workers requires regular emptying and at £150.00 plus a tankful it is a very expensive business. Charlie’s effluent was over 95% water and less than a mile from the nearest sewage treatment works – still full price for a tankerful though.

The cesspool acts as a settlement tank; the liquid waste in the cesspool can be proccessed in the septic tank. A septic tank usually has two compartments. It is designed to retain solids and liquid waste for a period and then release a clarified effluent to be discharged to a soakway. The solids partially decompose producing a ‘sludge’ that needs to be removed by tanker vehicle, usually only once a year.

The effluent is very poor quality and only suitable for discharge into well drained land – fine for Charlie’s farm land. A septic tank can be one of the most cost effective means of private drainage.

The problem Charlie had to overcome was how to get waste from his cesspool to the septic tank to treat the waste water for discharge on the land and so only have to pay to have both tanks emptied once a year or less.

He considered a solids pump or a macerating pump, but in both these cases to much solid material would be pumped into the septic tank, blocking it up. A pump with a traditional basket stariner would be bound to fail when the strainer blocked. He needed a self cleaning septic tank filter.

Charlie opted for a Rotorflush self-cleaning filterpump with a float switch to move liquid waste to the septic tank as required. The low maintenance and reliability of the pump and septic tank filter means he saves on disposal costs.
The filterpump’s unique self-cleaning mechanism prevents the filter and the pump from blocking, most of the suspended solid waste stays in the cesspool and the filtered waste is dealt with by the septic tank.

Charlie bought his Rotorflush in the noughties; regular filter maintenance every 6 months or so and taking care not to dry run the pump has meant that it still gives him great service. The pump cost about £900 pounds when he bought it – he saved £1200 in disposal costs in the first year.