old man emu Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Koreelah Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Another great Aussie tradition (and lots of jobs) lost. Blame Gough Whitlam, who carried out a promise to bring sewerage to suburban Australia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty_d Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Ok, I'm all for a little nostalgia and rose-tinted past-gazing, but are we really saying it's a shame that the job of night-soil man has gone?? Personally I'm looking forward to the invention of matter transmission, where you get a little gate implanted in your lower bowel which transmits "the mail" straight to a central processing tank! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Koreelah Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Ok, I'm all for a little nostalgia and rose-tinted past-gazing, but are we really saying it's a shame that the job of night-soil man has gone?? ... Absobluddylutely not, Marty! As one who many times had to empty the can from our farm outhouse, I consider extending the sewage network to be one of Whitlam's great achievements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 And 40 Pistins (you missed that.) Nev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old man emu Posted December 13, 2017 Share Posted December 13, 2017 Forty-four door sedans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted December 22, 2017 Share Posted December 22, 2017 In the UK: The Tapper-Man Had a long pole with little weights on the end to tap on the upstairs windows to get you up for work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yenn Posted December 23, 2017 Author Share Posted December 23, 2017 What we need now is to do away with the sewer system and get biologicly treated sewerage in the home. It is possible now and can be done without smell or disease risk. One of the things limiting our growth and population increase is the lack of water. What is the greatest use of water in the home? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Already gone. It was enforced on all new homes in Kurrajong Hights NSW, worked well untill power-outage switched off the system. When system restarted it pumped ALL the raw stuff onto their lawns, big stink about that. spacesailor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octave Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Already gone.It was enforced on all new homes in Kurrajong Hights NSW, worked well untill power-outage switched off the system. When system restarted it pumped ALL the raw stuff onto their lawns, big stink about that. spacesailor Funnily enough, my first house was in Kurrajong Heights (1985-1990) since there was and I would assume now no sewage system in this area we installed an Envirocylce system since absorption trench methods were no longer allowed to be installed. Our system worked very well. It came with a mandatory service agreement.From memory it could go 4 or 5 days without power also had an alarm system. These systems replaced soak away systems which in this steep terrain came with plenty of problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Somebody had to pay for the residents to be away from their homes till the stench subsided. ( my supervisor at work had a nice new house there). Not a happy chappie for a few weeks that time. spacesailor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octave Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Somebody had to pay for the residents to be away from their homes till the stench subsided. ( my supervisor at work had a nice new house there).Not a happy chappie for a few weeks that time. spacesailor When was this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Decades ago, when I was working! spacesailor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octave Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Decades ago, when I was working!spacesailor The system we had could store 4 or 5 days without pumping to the irrigation system. Without power, nothing leaves the tank because this relies on the irrigation pump which also requires power. Eventually, the system would overflow I guess but there would be plenty of warning. Apart from that, there is not much choice in this area. The council under the right circumstances will approve composting toilets. Our neighbors who built shortly before we did we allowed to have a soakaway system which did not work very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomadpete Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 I have had Enviro Cycle system for 10 yrs or so. Good in theory. Very expensive. The first air pump lasted two years. Cost $500. Next time I got a rubber repair kit for only $150. (Air pump is only an oversized aquarium pump). The liquid pump failed every 3 yrs, cost $150 each time. So, after 10 yrs, cost me well over $1500 for replacement parts. That's without paying a certified installer. Added to that, the council requires an annual inspection, which cost about $250 the first time. Once I saw what it involved, I decided to do my own checks on the aeration. It' not difficult to keep it bubbling away happily. So, all in all, the environ take works well as long as you keep on paying. Our next house has an old fashioned passive absorption trench system . But nowadays even that has changed (more expensive than ever). Now these require 60 MTRS of trench set up with plastic covers and prescribed gravels. ( About three times larger than the old systems). They tell me this is progresse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty_d Posted December 23, 2017 Share Posted December 23, 2017 Yeah I'm not convinced by envirocycles either - for the reasons you mention Peter. Our old septic system is still chugging along. Still, different areas have different soils & gradients which will affect the type of system needed. Mate of mine out at 7-mile beach said his block is pretty much sand, so the outflow from his septic is probably clean a metre away from the pipe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted December 24, 2017 Share Posted December 24, 2017 My daughter's septic is surrounded by "pepper trees", plus a "willow tree or two. And thats the only place grass stays green. (40d C at the moment) so septic tanks are good for the environment. spacesailor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methusala Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 Always been attracted by the concept of a Swedish style composting toilet. The low energy input could surely be provided from roof top solar. Don't know much about these systems as I'm a plumber so mostly experienced in pipework systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted January 1, 2018 Share Posted January 1, 2018 Perhaps the "dry composting drop toilet", Natural Parks use them, Great worm farms LoL. spacesailor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted January 2, 2018 Share Posted January 2, 2018 Grass and tree roots get into you septic runs. Inconvenient and expensive to redo them. Needs a good trencher, with all the mess THAT makes. OK, sort of, if you just have a paddock but a nice garden doesn't like it. Nev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Perry Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 I love the smell of a kero lantern; always use them on the rare occasion I go camping. It's a very nostalgic, old world smell. Are you sure that you're using Kerroe and not Jet 1 ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomadpete Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Does the Israeli government have a problem with its septic system and Kero lanterns? Drifting worse than MH370 wreckage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Perry Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 I Perhaps the "dry composting drop toilet",Natural Parks use them, Great worm farms LoL. spacesailor We have used some of those 'Drop Toilets' whilst driving through France. . .they are always there in the little roadside 'Pull -In' rest stops on the Auto Route 'N' highways.. . .along with a little French bloke in an open sided caravan selling frankfurter Hot Dogs and 'FRITES' ( Bloody French Fries ) then there are always around 50 different flavours of mustard, Garlic sauces and mayonnaise to squirt over them too. . . . served in long Fresh French Bread sticks with slices of cheese covering the Frites. . . . . around two feet long ( 60 CM ) Quite nice actually. . . . Last time I had TWO of these things as I was feeling particularly Esulient at the time, . . but I farted Garlic continuously for the next 350 Miles to Bordeaux to the chagrin of my passengers. . . . (Sorry - but I can only imagine distance in Miles,. . . .) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Marty, you should have been the local environmental officer when I was forced to do the wrong type of effluent drain for the septic tank here on the farm. The actual guy was a scientific illiterate but he had the power to deem his opinions to be correct. So we put in a short but deep effluent drain into impermeable clay and to this day in really wet weather we have to use a pump to dispose of the excess out onto a paddock. I wanted to have a much longer and shallower ag drain running slightly downhill and dug in to just below the bottom of the topsoil. Yes it could be secretly changed and then it would be illegal but working better. Maybe my pump setup is illegal too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 They need very little slope. Just enough to disperse evenly along their length. Got two plumbers in the family. Clay is rather IMPERVIOUS.. Nev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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