Imagine the horror – we’d bought our dream house in France, spent a small fortune doing it up, and had our first holiday tenants safely installed when the phone rang. It was our guests with the news that the toilets were backing up with raw sewage.
Replacing the receiver I turned to my husband with one word on my lips: ‘merde!’ I phoned our neighbour in France. Our house lies at the heart of D’Artagnan country, and on the other side of our village lane lives our own musketeer. Always coming to our rescue with a chainsaw or wheelbarrow during our frequent trips to the house, we had come to rely on Roland especially when we were back in England. I left a message and hung-up.
My mind was racing – we had eight guests who couldn’t use the loos, showers or sinks for fear of turning our nineteenth-century Gascony manor house into an open sewer. It was Saturday night in mid-summer and everything would be closed – my heart sank as I tried not to imagine the scene (or the smell) after three more days of 40-degree heat. In desperation I rang the number on my water bill.
Expecting another dead-end, I was astonished when my panicky French pleas were answered in perfect English. I was promised a team of men would visit the next morning to look at the problem, which I suggested was due to mains water leaking into the soil around the septic tank (fosse septique) and preventing it from draining properly. A tiny puddle had appeared by the back wall of the house a few days before our guests arrived and my suspicions now rested on that. There was a large pond at the opposite corner of the house with an old weeping willow at its edge, which Roland said was fed by a natural spring, and I was concerned the whole water table might be rising.
After hours of futile attempts to find a plumber the phone rang again. Steeling myself for the worst, I heard the broad Gascon tones of the heroic Roland describing in vivid detail how he’d spent the evening with his arm up a u-bend pulling out paper and poo to clear a blockage. The shallow angle of the pipes had allowed waste to build up, a problem which was exacerbated by thick UK loo paper and a small plastic toy. The problem of the full tank remained however and Roland arranged for it to be emptied the next day.
Little did we know worse was to come...
Open water
The fosse septique was an old concrete chamber buried in the ground in the 1950s when the only inside toilet was installed. It had coped during the lifetime of the elderly occupant. But we hadn’t realised until we’d installed four wcs and three bathrooms, that the tank’s overflow pipe discharged straight into the ditches that ran through the village where Roland’s grandson fishes for crayfish.
The fosse septique was designed by a Frenchman in 1860 to separate the effluent into a layer of sludge at the bottom, which is broken down by bacteria, and a layer of clearer water at the top that runs off into the ditches, irrigating the surrounding land. Every few years the tank and grease-trap should be pumped out and fosse-friendly chemicals added to keep the whole process ticking along.
In practice, however, most old country houses like ours don’t bother with the emptying bit, and once the fosse is full, every time someone flushes the loo or puts a load of washing on, the effluent is discharged straight into the open sewer. The extra demand being placed on our antiquated French sewage system was too much. Add to this the discovery by the water company that the ‘spring’ at the back of the house was in fact a torrent from the mains that had turned the parched summer soil into a swamp, and the whole drainage system was choked. Within weeks of the problems being sorted out, the ancient pond at the corner of the barn had dried up and the lake in the wood was no more.
Fortunately our visiting holidaymakers were incredibly understanding and their children were captivated by the sight of huge JCBs trundling past the swimming pool!
All would have seemed well had the fosse septique levels not continued to rise at an alarming rate, costing us a small fortune to have it regularly emptied. We went to see the mayor. He knew the whole system intimately, having owned the company that installed it. He told us to wait. There was to be a vote in the commune in October to decide whether our village would install a collective sewerage system or whether each householder would have to revise their own in accordance with new laws coming into force by the start of 2006.
We held our breath. The news was not good. The vote amongst the primarily ageing villagers was unanimously against a collective system, which would have increased their taxes. The sheer scale of the task and the fact that three out of four French homes currently fail to comply with the legal requirements means there’s an unofficial amnesty on old tanks until the new body known as SPANC (Service Public d’Assainissement Non-Collectif) gets round to visiting every home in France.
Our needs were pressing, however, so we set about installing a mini-sewage farm in our back garden which was to cost over €12,000 (£8,049).
The first problem was where to put it. It consisted of a 5,000-litre fosse toutes eaux, a 200-litre grease trap, an electric pump to move the waste water through the pipes from the house up to the filter bed where narrower pipes pierced with holes drip water down through layers of gravel and sand. The whole thing was wrapped up in a layer of permeable membrane like a giant parcel measuring a whopping 10 metres by 4 metres buried a metre below ground level and rising a further metre above. We wanted to hide it between the barn and the wood but regulations wouldn’t allow it within close range of trees, neighbouring land or buildings so we put it in our field, covered it with a layer of soil and let nature take its course. The size of the system is calculated according to the number of rooms and toilets you have and the whole thing has to be signed off by the SPANC man.
Legal action
France being France, it is not known when the new laws will affect every homeowner. But one thing is certain – all homes will have to have a system that complies with the new regulations and furthermore, the quality of the treated wastewater will be routinely tested. Any failures will result in notice to the homeowner to improve it. Failure to do so could result in legal action.
All recent installations, like ours, should have been documented and the records placed with the mairie. In fact, six months later we are still waiting for our SPANC certificates as their vast new workload takes its toll.
If you buy an old house in the country like we did, ask to see the legal certificate of approved drainage – it is unlikely that there is one but it will be the responsibility of the new owner to get it. It is important as the notaire will need it before you can resell the property in the future and many house sales are currently being held up by frustrating delays over this new requirement.
We were the first in our commune and one of the first in Gers to install a filter bed system and fosse septique. So, having just ploughed 230,000m³ of sand and nearly 100,000m³ of gravel into a hole in the ground, our builder was visibly relieved when the official paperwork was signed off by the SPANC inspector.
The idea of the sand and stones is that the waste percolates through finer and finer channels until purified water drains away into the soil below. The major solids are retained in the new plastic septic tank and grease trap, which still need emptying every four years while all the receipts must be kept – as proof – for inspection by the mairie. A bureaucratic headache perhaps but at least we can now breathe a sigh of relief – safe in the knowledge that there should be no more nasty surprises for our guests in the future.
However do not assume that just because you have a town house you benefit from mains drains – even if you have the paperwork to vouch for it, as friends of ours were recently shocked to discover...
Suzie and Adrian Larcombe bought a 14-roomed townhouse in the Gers town of Riscle and moved lock stock and barrel to a new life in France.
We moved into the house which was (barely) habitable,’ Suzie remembers. ‘It had a toilet and hot water but when we came to install the bathroom and got chatting to the plumber about the drainage system, we discovered we had an internal septic tank that had to be manually pumped out! We revisited the purchase papers which confirmed that we were linked to the town drainage.’
The cost of filling in the old tank and connecting to the mains sewer (in anticipation of the new law) was €3,000 (£2,012). Undaunted by the bureaucracy, the Larcombes finally reached a satisfactory compromise, whereby the old owner paid half and the maire paid the other half by cancelling their assainisement bills for the next three years.
History
Jean-Louis Mouras built the first septic tank in Vesoul in 1860.
The French separated the grey water (eau usée) from showers, sinks, washing machines etc and the sewage (eau vanne) from the WC .
The eau usée went into ditches or local streams.
The eau vanne was either:
• piped into a fosse septique with an outlet to a rudimentary filter bed
• or piped into a fosse d’etanche that was supposed to be emptied regularly.
The fosse septique
Once in the tank the waste starts to break up and the lightest parts (fat, oil, grease) floats to the surface where they form a crust. These will be digested by aerobic bacteria and transformed into carbon dioxide and water.
Heavier solids drop and settle at the bottom.They will be digested by anaerobic bacteria and the liquid will circulate in between the two masses.
The septic tank does not treat waste. It stores it while it undergoes its first transformation which removes about 30 per cent of pollutants. The remaining 70 per cent contains germs and pathogens (such as hepatitis, polio, cholera, para typhoid) which pose real threats to health. This is purified by the filter bed that is now required for every installation.
New Laws
The new laws require each commune to prepare a map – called the carte d’aptitude des sols which designates that the area should have either a collectif or non-collectif system. In the areas where non-collectif systems (fosse toutes eaux) are designated, each commune should have had a pollution monitoring system in place by the end of 2005 to control the disposal of all sewage.
Most of the maires are not specialists in wastewater treatment so many have appointed a syndicate or a professional body to enforce the law known as SPANC (Service Public d’Assainissement Non-Collectif)
If SPANC is refused access to a property or the owner refuses to comply with the findings of the SPANC inspector, the maire will be contacted to ensure the homeowner in question complies. If they refuse to act, the maire can request the service of the gendarmes or start a legal case against them.
The law does not impose any construction obligation on communes that have designated collectif systems. So if a commune does not have the money for a system collectif then do not buy a house in the designated area because you will probably not get consent for a non-collectif fosse toutes eaux.
If your property is in a designated collectif area, where the main drains have been installed, you will eventually be obliged to stop using your existing fosse septique and connect to the mains drainage in the road.
Changes expected in 2007
Your installer’s responsibility is to provide the system according to the regulations, which refer to materials to be used and installation techniques. The installer must inform SPANC before the start of work and have the work inspected before it is back-filled.
A revised version of the regulations will be available in the first half of this year and will supersede the old ones.
Several water syndicates are planning semi-collective projects, whereby several houses will be link to one common system. The installation and maintenance of the system will be managed by the water syndicate, who will charge the private individual. Find out if such a project will be available in your area and, if not, encourage your water syndicate to make this option available before installing your own system.
Mains drainage connections
If mains drainage has been or is about to be installed, then the homeowner will have been asked where they would prefer the connection point to be located. If this request is not answered the commune’s drainage contractor will make the decision and mark the connection point on a plan.
The mains drainage connection needs to be planned before the installation of a pool – often the best locations for both result in a clash.
Mains drainage connections will damage established gardens (as do fosses) so it’s advisable to install a pool at the same time to keep costs and disruption to a minimum.
Maintenance of fosse systems
The new law requires that the fosse toutes eaux is emptied at least every four years. You must retain the invoice from the licensed fosse evacuation contractor for future inspections.
When a fosse has been emptied it should be refilled with fresh water and treated with a packet of EPARCYL (available in most supermarkets). A fosse that has stopped working for any reason can also be kick-started by emptying, refilling and treating with EPARCYL.
Information supplied by Jean-Claude Bardot.
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