Septic Tank Legislation - heads up!

We have a septic tank serving our house in France. This legislation is (dare I say it) Europe wide legislation, so we too have to to follow it

Fortunately we had to replace our previous system when we installed extra bedrooms in the house in 2008 as the size of tank is dictated by the bedroom numbers. Because the land does not drain well we had to have a huge hole dug in the front garden and then filled , in layers with three different sizes of gravel. The water has to be pumped up to the front garden and we have to keep the pump on 24/7, even when we are not there.

Apart from that it has been no trouble at all. We buy boxes of sachets with an enzyme accelerator, which we flush through when we arrive and leave, although that is not necessary, just a belt and braces action and, as the French implemented the new system some years ago, we have since had two official inspections from an organisation wonderfully acronymed SPANC and passed both with full colours. Our system will only need pumping out every 15 years.

We’ve always had a septic tank. Had no idea about new legislation. Thanks for alerting us.

If the legislation is identical to that in France I could write a book about it! But I won't bore you.
Just to add, ours was 'non-conforming' but worked perfectly well. There was a 4 yearly inspection. The only sanction was a fine if the waste water discharged into a source of drinking water.
We did have to include a report when we sold the house. And the buyer is supposed to replace it in a year. But no-one knew any case of the enforcement of those rules.

What I could write a book on is having our septic tank installed. Starting with the first day when they disconnected the old system, started digging the hole for the new system and left us with a temporary pond into which all house waste decanted - and then went disappeared for three days.

What a nightmare M0nica. That's one of the things we dreaded if we'd got a new one. But mainly it was the cost. 8-10k euros. There were some partial grants available.
I think the sanitation people in France gave up on punitive action, because there were so many non-conforming fosses in rural France.

Fennel France is much less densely populated and it is just not practical to get many houses onto the main sewer system, so there are so many houses with fosse septiques that monitoring everyone is impractical.

We had to replace ours. It was always far too small and we knew we would have to replace it sooner than later. and 8-10,000 euros was indeed what we paid, but we were undertaking a major house improvement project and it was just the first stage of that work.

I wouldn’t worry too much unless you have extended the house recently. However if you are planning to sell the house the buyer will check the drainage system so dont be surprised if it doesn’t comply with regulations. He will of course want a price reduction to replace the system

Do these regs. come from the EU? If so they may never be applied in the UK. If we leave.
It means extra expense - whole new admin. depts. were set up in France.

Generally all EU legislation was incorporated into British legislation about a year ago as part of Brexit.

What many people do not realise that much of what as seen as EU legislation, is legislation that the UK would have passed anyway, but decided not to waste time reinventing the wheel, when the EU did it for them. Each country usually establishes its own regulations for how EU legislationn is implemented. So it is unlikely that the UK will have systems much different from other EU countries, it will just be implemented from a British perspective.

Lets face it the French may comply with EU legislation, but in their own inimitable way - and that probably applies to all other EU countries