Homeowners who live within the river catchment area of the scheme and within the relevant district council boundary are potentially eligible for the scheme. Please take a look at the two maps; they show the catchment areas:
If you are on the border or it is unclear whether you are within the catchment, feel free to either register, and we will check, or give us a call on 01328 854549.
Please note that whilst it may be disappointing if you are outside of the catchments, sometimes only by a few meters, these boundaries are set in stone and we have no control over them. We can only advise you if you are within or outside of the catchment for the purposes of this scheme.
Please be aware that where you live is only the first step in confirming that your property is eligible for the scheme. There are a number of other checks that we will need to carry out to confirm your full eligibility, including site surveys, desktop surveys and legal checks.
In March 2022, Natural England passed legislation which effectively prevented local planning departments approving planning applications for any development with new overnight accommodation in certain areas, unless the developer could prove that the proposed development does not add further pollution to the water catchment area of the local rivers. At the time, this had a major effect on development of any kind resulting in the approval of the majority of planning applications coming to a standstill. The aim of the scheme is to improve and reduce nutrient export which in turn will improve water quality, water resource usage and habitat creation.
The great news is that the initial paperwork is completed online via a company called DocuSign. It’s a really simple process that only takes a few clicks, and you don’t even have to log in or create any form of account. Once the legal documentation is ready for signature, you will need to come into one of our regional offices at a pre-arranged date and time (Monday to Friday during normal office hours) to discuss the paperwork and sign it. Unfortunately, there is no option to be able to post or email the paperwork to you for signing.
Our regional offices are
The scheme is operated by Norfolk Rivers Consortium and National Rivers Consortium. The Norfolk Local Planning Authorities have formed a partnership called Norfolk Environmental Credits under which they operate the scheme with us. Kent operates similarly under the name Stour Environmental Credits.
Elsewhere in England, the scheme is operated by the National Rivers Consortium, which trades directly with developers in affected catchments, with the approval of Natural England and the relevant local planning authority.
We don’t hide the fact that a substantial job, such as installing a sewage treatment plant, does not come without cost. However, the important bit for you is that you, as the homeowner, do not have to pay.
Please also see the additional “Costs” section of the FAQ’s.
When developers want to build any type of development which includes new overnight accommodation, they have to show that they are not increasing the pollution within the local rivers.
There are many ways they can do this, but one is by helping other homeowners in the same catchment area improve their situation, e.g., by replacing their septic tanks with more efficient sewage treatment plants.
In essence, therefore, developers within the catchment area are ultimately funding the scheme.
(The definition of a developer can include anyone from a homeowner wanting to add an annex to up to a national house builder).
The current owner and any future owner (over the next 90 years) are bound by a Unilateral Undertaking or Conservation Covenant Agreement to look after the new sewage treatment plant, including its servicing and maintenance.
The plant is owned by you at all times, and therefore it is just like the roof on your house or your boiler, in that a certain amount of maintenance will be required over the lifetime of the property; this is no different to the sewage treatment plant.
The law, as set out in the General Binding Rules, stipulates how and when septic tanks and sewage treatment plants can be used, and how they should be maintained. Even if you decided that you did not want to sign up for the scheme, as you could afford to pay for the installation of the new sewage treatment plant yourself, you are still obligated to look after, service, maintain and ultimately replace your sewage treatment plant as and when required.
It is our view that there are very few differences in reality as to your obligations, whether you take advantage of the scheme and get a free plant or if you pay for one outside of the scheme.
Yes, the tank itself has a 15-year warranty, and all of the serviceable parts come with a 3-year warranty, which is provided by the manufacturer, Graf.
Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus provide nutrition for plants and animals and are required for them to grow. They occur naturally in ecosystems, but human activities can increase their supply. An excess of nitrogen and phosphorus can damage the environment by leading to eutrophication and algal blooms in rivers and lakes.
The main sources of phosphorus and nitrates in rivers and lakes in the UK are sewage effluent and run-off from agricultural land.
The consortium is made up of specialists in various fields. We have worked together to come up with a solution that has already been tested with the planning departments and has seen planning applications approved using our scheme.
Not necessarily, the development only has to be within the same river catchment area where the septic tank upgrade takes place. The scheme does not allow developers to build in areas where they couldn’t previously, i.e., outside the current Local Plans.
We install state-of-the-art Graf One2Clean sewage treatment plants, which are the market-leading plant for Nutrient Neutrality.
Yes you do, please see the heading below named “Stages”
Yes. There is a contract to sign with us that covers the installation of the tank and grants us permission to access your land to carry out the work you are asking us to do. It also ties you to us for the first 5 years for the servicing and maintenance of the new plant – please read through the additional questions about servicing under the “Servicing” heading.
There is also a unilateral undertaking between you and the local authority, which includes how the property owner needs to look after the plant going forward (See “Post Installation” questions re Servicing and emptying).
Yes, of course, you will be sent a copy of the draft contract and the Unilateral Undertaking/Conservation Covenant Agreement once we have carried out the survey of your property and are happy to proceed. This will be prior to you committing to the scheme, so that you have time to ask any questions about them. If, for any reason, you would like to see copies prior to that stage, then please just give our office a call on 01328 854549, and we will be happy to email you a copy.
Take a look at the reviews from homeowners that have already been through the process and see what they have to say. You can then compare these with other companies who claim to offer a similar service.
In addition to reviewing Google Reviews, you can be assured that we have undergone a lengthy, detailed tendering process with the local authorities in Norfolk and Kent, which enables us to carry out the scheme on their behalf. Do feel free to compare what we can offer to other companies, but always ensure that you are comparing like-for-like and that they are working directly for the local authority. Elsewhere in England, our scheme is fully approved by Natural England and the relevant Local Planning Authorities, allowing us to trade nutrient credits directly to developers.
You will receive a Graf One2Clean Sewage Treat Plant, which will be sized according to the size of your property and in conjunction with the current building regulations.
Further details about the Graf Sewage Treatment Plant can be found here https://www.grafuk.co.uk/product/one2clean-sewage-treatment-plant/
Apart from seeing 1 or possibly 2 new inspection covers, depending on your property’s needs, the only item that you will see above ground is the compressor housing, which you can see in the attached photo. This can be positioned along a wall, as in the photo, along a hedge or near an outbuilding, subject to the surveyor’s approval.
You will also see below some examples of recent installations and how the area will be left. Please note that we do not re-landscape, lay turf or reseed your garden. It is left level and tidy for you to finish off as required.
Yes, there are. Please take a look at the “Bin it – Don’t Flush it” document from Graf that outlines what you cannot flush into the system. This is extremely important and will have a major impact on how well your sewage treatment plant will work and how much maintenance it may need in the future if you misuse it.
The two things you need to pay most attention to are the types of cleaning products you use and the level of fat and grease that may enter the system, usually from your kitchen. (see the following questions for more information).
As you will see on the list, it is essential that you cease using any bleach-based products with the new sewage treatment plant. Bleach will kill all bacteria, and the new sewage treatment plant relies on bacteria for part of its processes. Therefore, if you continue to use bleach, this will have a major negative impact on its operation.
As part of our drive to clean up the environment, we now offer householders a free pack of household cleaning products from Bio-D ( https://biod.co.uk/). This not only includes the products used for toilets, but a whole range of products that you can use throughout the house. Using Bio-D helps remove unnecessary chemicals from our cleaning products that eventually enter the environment and our rivers. We also provide a 15% discount code for your first order placed directly with Bio-D. We have invested heavily in providing these free products for you to try, and we just ask that you use them all during the first few months, and then, hopefully, you will decide to continue using them going forward.
As you will see on the “Bin it Don’t Flush it” document produced by Graf you should not allow food waste to enter the new sewage treatment plant. This includes fats and oils you use whilst cooking (simply wipe pots and pans with a paper towel and dispose of it in your bin) and any food waste, which should be placed in an appropriate food waste bin. Most food waste contains fat, which will adversely affect the operation of the sewage treatment plant. Therefore, scrape excess food from plates and pans into the bin before you put them in the dishwasher.
If it is a salt-based water softener that discharges during a regeneration cycle, it is important that this discharge does not enter the new sewage treatment plant but instead goes into its own small soakaway within the garden.
It is best to remember that the sewage treatment plant is yours, and normally, no other households feed into it. Therefore, if you ignore the advice, you will only create problems for yourself going forward, including potential odours from the plant, increased servicing costs, and blockages you will need to deal with. You are also signing legal documentation to say that you will look after the plant going forward. Although we do cover the costs of looking after the plant in the first two years, if it is blatantly obvious that you are not looking after the plant as per the manufacturer’s recommendations, we do reserve the right to charge you for any call-outs relating to the misuse of the equipment.
For the majority of households, much of the above will not come as a surprise, and they already make an effort to maintain their septic tank and are considerate of the environment. If you don’t believe you will be able to make those changes, then this scheme, which is primarily an environmentally focused scheme, is not for you, and we would encourage you to find a suitable solution that you are happy with.
Homeowners who live within the river catchment area of the scheme and within the relevant district council boundary are potentially eligible for the scheme. Please take a look at the two maps; they show the catchment areas:
If you are on the border or it is unclear whether you are within the catchment, feel free to either register, and we will check, or give us a call on 01328 854549.
Please note that whilst it may be disappointing if you are outside of the catchments, sometimes only by a few meters, these boundaries are set in stone and we have no control over them. We can only advise you if you are within or outside of the catchment for the purposes of this scheme.
Please be aware that where you live is only the first step in confirming that your property is eligible for the scheme. There are a number of other checks that we will need to carry out to confirm your full eligibility, including site surveys, desktop surveys and legal checks.
Let me first of all explain the difference between a cesspit/cesspool and a septic tank, as this is not always understood correctly. A cesspit or cesspool is a sealed container in the ground with no outlet; therefore, as soon as it is full, both liquids and solids must be removed. A septic tank has an outlet; therefore, once the solids and liquids have been separated, the liquids gradually seep away, typically into a drainage field or soakaway. This means that a septic tank needs emptying far less often than a cesspool.
Because a cesspool or cesspit does not contaminate the local area (as it has no outlet), it unfortunately cannot be replaced under the scheme.
If you are unsure and do not have any evidence to suggest it is a cesspit/cesspool, and you do not empty the tank more than, say, once per year, then register it as a septic tank and discuss it further with our surveyor when he comes to the site.
The majority of properties do not require a permit for either their existing septic tank or a new sewage treatment plant. However, there are times when a permit is needed, and you may have to ensure this is in place prior to us starting any work. An example of this is if you currently rely on a borehole for drinking water and it is within 50m of the discharge point of your existing septic tank. Another is if you live in a special protection zone or an SSSI.
Sometimes, during our desktop studies, we will make you aware that your property falls within one of these areas; ultimately, it is up to the homeowner to ensure they are operating within the law. If you have any doubts, please feel free to call us to discuss it further. Any permits you require would have to be obtained from the Environment Agency.
The scheme, in the main, only covers residential properties; therefore, businesses, village halls, church halls, and community buildings cannot take advantage of it.
If you have a business that in some way incorporates regularly used residential overnight accommodation, for example, a residential care home or hotel, please call us to discuss it further.
No. The scheme is open to anyone who meets the general criteria of living within the catchment area and having a property where the installation is possible.
The physical site survey, stage 1, is to review your existing setup and other factors at your property that will determine whether we can proceed with your installation.
Stage 2 also undertakes various desktop studies in relation to your property and whether it qualifies under the scheme.
In some circumstances, the property may not be suitable, and we will advise you of this after we have completed stage 2 (this is prior to you being fully committed, and therefore you will not incur any costs if we cannot proceed).
If you have a mortgage or any other secured borrowing on your property, then your lender will need to be a party to some of the documents and approve the scheme.
We can provide you with a draft copy of the document that they will need to sign if you want to approach them first to obtain their agreement in principle, otherwise we will send the paperwork to them on your behalf when the time comes.
If they don’t agree to sign the paperwork, then we cannot proceed. To date, we have only had one equity release lender, called “More 2 Life”, decline to sign the paperwork; all other lenders have signed to allow the scheme to proceed.
Some lenders do ask you, as the homeowner, to engage your own solicitor to answer some of their questions. If this happens, then any cost of this would be between your lender, your solicitor and you; it is not something that the scheme will cover. If you do not have a solicitor who can help you with that, then we may be able to suggest one. In our experience, the cost of this is circa £500+vat, but again, this is between you and your own solicitor; we will not ask you for any payment.
From our past experience, in having now installed circa 200 tanks under the scheme and having dealt with many lenders, those that want the homeowner to use an external solicitor tend to be Natwest, Santander, Nationwide and TSB.
Please also see the FAQ under “costs” regarding potential third-party costs.
We will consider the results of each survey on its own merits.
During the survey, the surveyor will need to walk the route, including any 3rd party land, so please obtain permission for this to happen in time for the survey. If we cannot do this during the survey, then we will have to decline the application.
For the installation to proceed, the 3rd-party landowner will also need to sign an access contract with you and us to grant the permissions we need during the installation. If they are not willing to sign our standard 3rd party access contract, then we will not be able to proceed. Therefore, we recommend that you discuss this fully with your neighbour in the very early stages of the process.
We will leave any 3rd-party land in the same way as we would your own back garden, i.e., tidy and level. This does not include hand raking or the reinstatement of any fences, hedges, or other items/structures that you or we have had to remove to allow the installation to proceed. If any additional work is requested by the owner of the 3rd-party land, this is between the homeowner and the 3rd-party land owner; we will not take on that additional work.
There are 2 main factors involved when it comes to how long you will need to wait for the installation to take place
1) Generally, we carry out these installations as a village/community project (see the FAQ’s entitled “Village / Community Installations”), and we would want to see that a reasonable number of households from your area register their interest before carrying out surveys in the area.
2) We are also led by nutrient credit demand, which will dictate when we will be able to upgrade your system.
Because of these 2 factors, we may not be able to provide a timescale for when the installation may take place. All you can do at this stage is to register your interest and then we will contact you when we are able to move forward.
Once we have completed stages 1 and 2 of the process and you have agreed to proceed to stage 3, there will be a contract to sign, which will then give us up to 2 years to complete the installation.
Please be assured, however, that as long as there is a call from your local authority for installations in your area, we will arrange for your new sewage treatment plant to be installed as quickly as we can.
You will get an automated response to confirm your registration. Once we have a number of homeowners registered in your immediate area, we will arrange for a surveyor to visit and assess the viability of your property.
We do prioritise areas based on the number of registrations we have. Given that the scheme benefits the whole community/village by cleaning up rivers, ditches, and waterways, we encourage everyone to share details of the scheme with their neighbours. You will receive a flyer to share with your neighbours to encourage them to register.
We are likely to be at your property between 2 and 5 working days, this can vary depending on the complexity of each installation.
The average price to change a septic tank to a sewage treatment plant is in the region of £15,000. Therefore, it would be wise to upgrade now, while the scheme is available, rather than wait until you are forced to do it; the scheme may have stopped by then, and you would have to pay for it yourself.
Absolutely, up until now, the majority of our business is with those homeowners who have a septic tank. They endeavour to try and sell their property, and it is highlighted by the surveyor that either the existing system does not meet current requirements or that it is coming to the end of its life and will need changing soon. In our experience, this then either causes the sale to fall through (as the lender is not willing to provide a mortgage on the property), or the timescales on moving are dramatically increased because a new sewage treatment plant has to be installed, or the buyer demands a large discount to cover the costs once they have moved in.
Therefore, our advice is to have it done now and avoid problems further down the line.
Please make it clear to us if you are in the process of selling your house or if you intend to start the process prior to the installation being completed, as this will affect various aspects of the preparation.
At present, the scheme focuses only on replacing Septic Tanks. You are welcome to register your sewage treatment plant. If, at some point in the future, this is something we can look at, we will be able to contact you then.
We would like to make it clear that this is not a “pot of money” that homeowners are “entitled” to. We have spent a significant amount of time, effort and our own money in building this scheme with the approval of the various public bodies. We see this as a scheme that will help out everyone within the designated catchment areas to clean up our countryside and our rivers, and therefore, we are looking to work with communities to get these upgrades in place.
You will be required to cooperate with us throughout the process, answer any questions we may have, and provide any paperwork required to progress the scheme. When we get to the legal stage, we sometimes find issues with the homeowner’s title at the Land Registry, and if this is the case, you may well need to liaise with your own solicitor or the Land Registry to rectify these issues before we can proceed further.
So whilst you are not in essence having to pay for the installation, you will still need to put some effort into liaising with other parties and us to allow it to happen.
Let me first of all explain the difference between a cesspit/cesspool and a septic tank, as this is not always understood correctly. A cesspit or cesspool is a sealed container in the ground with no outlet; therefore, as soon as it is full, both liquids and solids must be removed. A septic tank has an outlet; therefore, once the solids and liquids have been separated, the liquids gradually seep away, typically into a drainage field or soakaway. This means that a septic tank needs emptying far less often than a cesspool.
Because a cesspool or cesspit does not contaminate the local area (as it has no outlet), it unfortunately cannot be replaced under the scheme.
If you are unsure and you do not have any evidence to suggest that it is a cesspit/cesspool, and you do not empty the tank more than, say, once per year, then register it as a septic tank and discuss it further with our surveyor when he comes to the site.
The majority of properties that we work on do not have access to a ditch. In those circumstances, we would look at the alternative of installing a new field drain at the property to deal with the treated water. The surveyor will look at these options during his visit.
In reality, it is paid for by everyone buying a property within the nutrient neutrality areas. Within the price of that house, a very small proportion will go to fund this scheme. We see that as a really important reason why those who are able to take advantage of the scheme do so while it is still available, and, in that way, the money stays within our communities.
We will work with you and you can discuss the location of the tank during the initial site survey (Stage 1), however please do keep in mind that we do have to take many factors into consideration when determining the location of the various equipment, including but not limited to location of existing septic tank, building regulations, installation guidelines, accessibility to the site and the costs of the installation.
Whilst the scheme will cover the usual costs involved in installing the tank, if you insist on a specific location that increases our costs beyond what the scheme will cover, we may need to decline to proceed.
Please keep this in mind when you meet with the surveyor.
For the safety of the animals and also of our staff, any area that is used for the sewage treatment plant, kiosk, or drainage field should not be used to keep animals on in the future. If you want to do this, then the area would need to be fenced off with a suitable pedestrian access gate into it so that our team can maintain and service the plant in safety, and that there is no risk of damage to the equipment.
We don’t hide the fact that a substantial job, such as installing a sewage treatment plant, does not come without cost. However, the important bit for you is that you, as the homeowner, do not have to pay.
The £1000 monitoring fee is relevant to Norfolk and Kent only and is to help the local authorities cover the cost of monitoring the Unilateral Undertaking, to ensure that it is implemented and adhered to going forward. Although the Unilateral Undertaking states that the homeowner pays this fee, it is actually covered by us, as confirmed in the local authority’s briefing letter. If you have not already seen that letter, then please ask, and we can supply you with a copy.
Outside Norfolk and Kent, monitoring is undertaken by RSK Biocensus, and monitoring fees for this service are paid by us directly to RSK Biocensus.
All of the work, including the site survey, is covered under the costs of the scheme, and we will not ask you for any payment.
Here are a couple of scenarios that we have come up against –
If you have a problem with your existing foul drains that you know is causing you a problem and it is situated before the inspection chamber prior to the existing septic tank, i.e., pipework that we would not normally touch or replace, then we would normally ask you to resolve the problem with another contractor before we start work.
Another common issue is that rainwater from your gutters is currently going through your existing septic tank. In these circumstances, it would be down to you to divert this water away from the septic tank and into a proper soakaway before we can start work.
Please be aware that if you have confirmed something with us, for example, that the existing storm water from your roofs does not go into the existing septic tank and then during the installation, it is found that it does indeed go into the septic tank, we are not obliged to take on additional work to correct these issues. Even if we offer to help you find a solution and maybe even implement it, this may come at an additional cost to you, which we will discuss with you. In these circumstances, if an immediate solution cannot be agreed upon, we will proceed with the installation of the new sewage treatment plant. You will then need to take immediate action to put any further solution in place, i.e., arrange for an alternative contractor to install the correct soakaways.
The other would be if we had carried out what we refer to as stages 1 and 2 of the process. We confirmed with you that we were happy that the installation was possible, and you then confirmed in writing that you wanted to proceed. If, after this point, you chose to cancel the contract, you would be liable for the £3000 + VAT in costs we had incurred up to that point. As long as you have the plant installed, then there is nothing to pay.
The scheme will not cover any costs associated with third parties such as a mortgage companies or any costs associated with crossing or using a neighbours land to allow the installation to proceed.
If it is found during the survey that your consumer unit (fuse board) is also not up to modern standards, preventing us from connecting the new sewage treatment plant, then you may also incur some 3rd-party costs to correct this problem before we can proceed.
If you have a mortgage or any other secured borrowing on your property, then your lender will need to be a party to some of the documents and approve the scheme.
We can provide you with a draft copy of the document that they will need to sign. If you want to approach them first to obtain their agreement in principle, we will send the paperwork to them on your behalf when the time comes.
If they don’t agree to sign the paperwork, then we cannot proceed. To date, we have only had one equity release lender, called “More 2 Life”, decline to sign the paperwork; all other lenders have signed to allow the scheme to proceed.
Some lenders do ask you, as the homeowner, to engage your own solicitor to answer some of their questions. If this happens, then any cost of this would be between your lender, your solicitor and you; it is not something that the scheme will cover. If you do not have a solicitor who can help you with that, then we may be able to suggest one. In our experience, the cost of this is circa £500+vat, but again, this is between you and your own solicitor; we will not ask you for any payment.
From our past experience, in having now installed circa 200 tanks under the scheme and having dealt with many lenders, those that want the homeowner to use an external solicitor tend to be Natwest, Santander, Nationwide and TSB.
There are 3 main costs involved in having a sewage treatment plant –
1) The plant does require an electricity supply, for an average property of up to 5 bedrooms, this would use approximately. 1.08 kWh per day. You would need to check your daytime and nighttime supply rates with your provider, but on average, 25p per kWh, then it would equate to approximately. £98 per year.
2) You will need to empty the new tank on average every 2 – 3 years. You can continue to use your existing contractor to do this.
3) Under the General Binding Rules (The law that covers Septic Tanks and Sewage Treatment Plants), you do have to have the new plant inspected each year, which currently costs £150+vat. The contract allows this to potentially rise with inflation each year
We cover the cost of the annual service for the initial 2 years, and then you will pay it from month 24 each year.
We may need to use electricity on site, and we will certainly need to use your water supply. An integral part of the installation process is filling the new tanks with water as the installation progresses, to prevent them from “popping” out of the ground until the concrete is set. This will mean that we will ask you to turn on your taps for an extended period of time. Any of these costs is borne by the homeowner or tenant.
To put it in perspective, a medium-sized tank serving a 5-bedroom property will hold around 2880 litres of water at its normal working level, which would cost around £7.78 to fill.
Yes, you can, but there are certain things to keep in mind
1) The scheme works on a like-for-like basis. If you currently have a shared tank, then the new sewage treatment plant will also be shared
2) The tank will remain in the same garden that it is currently in, ie we cannot move the tank’s position from one property to another.
3) The legal documents will include details of all parties that feed into the tank that is being changed. Your personal details, such as name, address and whether you have a mortgage on the property, will be visible to all parties (Details such as the amount of your mortgage are not visible). If you do not agree to this, then please do not register, as there is no alternative.
Each household feeding into the tank needs to make a separate registration, answering the questions accordingly. This covers us from a data protection perspective and also confirms that each household has reviewed these frequently asked questions and understands the scheme.
We cannot proceed with any of the properties until all homeowners who feed into the same existing tank have registered.
No – all homeowners that share the tank need to be involved and agree to the contract and Unilateral Undertaking; otherwise, none of the homeowners of the shared tank can benefit.
Please read through the section on the 3 stages of the process so you understand them. The additional risk is borne by the owner of the existing tank, since this is usually where the new tank will be installed.
We recommend that you speak with us after you have registered to discuss your specific arrangement, as shared tanks are usually more complex.
We would suggest that you liaise with any neighbours that share your tank from the outset so that you all fully understand the scheme and the risks. You could consider having some form of agreement between you to cover any eventuality, but this would be between yourselves and not us. Our main contract for the installation is with the homeowner at the site where the tank is installed.
There are many reasons why upgrading multiple properties in a village can be advantageous for both you and us. These include:
1) It keeps the amount of vehicle movements in and out of the village to a minimum, as we can very often set up a small compound to keep materials and equipment in.
2) It keeps our costs down
3) It means that everyone in the village is given the opportunity to partake in the scheme, as there are not always sufficient numbers for us to make multiple visits in the smaller locations.
4) The timescales over which we need to be in the village are much shorter
5) You will often find that your installation will be carried out much quicker if we have more to do.
In our experience, there are some key steps in a village successfully implementing the scheme
1) Having one or two key coordinators to spearhead the scheme ensures a structured approach – no technical knowledge or ability is needed!!
2) Decide on a location in the village where a meeting can be organised – as long as the date is discussed with us, and we are available, we are happy to come along and run the meeting and answer any questions. (In our experience, a parish council meeting is not the ideal forum for this)
3) We can then print you some flyers that include the time, date and location of the meeting, which you can distribute to all properties in the village or parish.
4) Meeting takes place, we can give a short presentation, and everyone is given the opportunity to ask questions – we find people are more likely to ask questions in this sort of environment. There will also be time at the end for them to approach us with any questions that might only apply to their property.
5) This then moves on to the 3 stages as explained elsewhere.
There are 3 main stages to the scheme, outlined below, and you will see them referred to as you progress. Following registration, we will retain your details on file, and when we have sufficient interest from properties in your area, we will make contact with you to start the process
You will be asked to sign an engagement letter, which will be sent to you electronically via DocuSign. The letter will outline the 3 stages for you and what will happen at each of these stages.
Please be aware that if you do not sign the engagement letter, then we cannot carry out the survey, and the appointment you may have arranged will be cancelled.
We have to make you aware of all of the key details about the scheme and the different stages at the outset, and therefore we have to have your signature to acknowledge that you have read and understood the information presented – you are free to call us if there is any aspect that you don’t understand. The initial survey is part of the overall process, and you are asking us to conduct it to determine whether you can proceed with the septic tank upgrade. See the attached copy of the letter you will be asked to sign.
You can simply walk away with no cost to you; just let us know. After the survey has been carried out, we can choose not to proceed with the installation if there are factors that prevent us from proceeding, and likewise, you can too.
Yes, once we are happy that we can proceed with the installation, we will send you another DocuSign letter, which explains that this is the point at which you are committing yourself to proceed with the installation. If you decide not to sign that form, after asking any further questions that you are unsure of, then you will not be committed, and there will be no costs to pay.
If you sign the form to commit yourself and then withdraw from the process, we will invoice you for £3000 + VAT.
We will arrange for a surveyor to visit your home to conduct the survey (which usually lasts between 30 and 60 minutes) to ensure the property is suitable for the scheme. This is an extremely important part of the process, and we would encourage the homeowner to be available for as long as the surveyor needs during the visit.
The surveyor will need to decide where the new plant and associated equipment can be positioned, and he will want to check with you that the position is acceptable. Multiple factors are taken into account when deciding on the location, including building regulations.
He will also need to see your consumer unit/fuseboard at your property to ensure it meets current regulations (he will need to take a photo of it for the survey).
The surveyor has limited time to carry out the survey and will not be able to answer any questions about the scheme itself or the type of equipment being installed. These should either be answered by calling us in the office on 01328 854549 or referring to the frequently asked questions.
During the visit, he will complete a digital form, and it must be filled out in a specific order to ensure we capture all the details we need. Please do not take offence if he cannot engage with you at certain points or asks you to wait until later in the process to answer any questions that you may have. Please remember that he is there to carry out a survey on our behalf, and our office staff will have more than sufficient time to discuss any aspect of the installation with you once the survey has been assessed in the office.
We do welcome your input as to where the plant and equipment might be located, the access route to the property and any other stipulations that you may have, such as where we might be allowed to store materials or park equipment etc etc, we appreciate that it is your property, however please do keep in mind that if you insist on something that does not work for us or increases the cost of the installation beyond what we can accommodate then we are likely to decline your application.
Examples of this may be:
This involves carrying out our various desktop studies by our civil engineers, as required by Natural England and the relevant authorities. This will prove to them that your property is eligible for the scheme
Following the completion of stage 2, we will contact you to confirm we can proceed with the installation. At this point, we can answer any further questions that you may have.
We will then email you a further document via DocuSign to confirm your intent to proceed. It is important to note that if you sign to proceed with the scheme and then decide to withdraw, you will be liable for our legal fees of £3000 + VAT.
To confirm, however, as long as the new sewage treatment plant is installed, there is no cost to you.
Stage 3: At this point, we will pass your file to our lawyers to prepare the relevant paperwork for you to sign. Once this is available, you will need to come into our office to sign that paperwork.
If you have a mortgage on the property, then your lender will also need to sign the paperwork to agree to the scheme. We will send this off to them on your behalf. You may need to liaise with them if they have any questions.
Once the paperwork is all in place, we will come back to you, and as soon as we can, we will give you an idea of the timescales for the installation.
First, you need to complete the online registration form. Once this has been completed and we are ready to carry out your surveys in your area, one of our team members will call you to arrange the survey. We cannot arrange a survey if you haven’t completed the online form or are unwilling to do so.
Please read through the attached letter, which will be sent to you to confirm the appointment.
Yes, this is a very important part of the process, and it is essential that the homeowner be present, as critical decisions about the installation and its position will be made during the visit.
Please call the office on 01328 854549 as soon as you are aware. We will do our best to re-arrange the survey for another time, please note that this is not always possible.
The surveyor will only ask you questions relevant to our survey, and we need you to give full and frank responses to allow us to make the many decisions that are part of the process. If you choose not to answer those questions, we will likely decline to proceed with your installation.
Unfortunately, if you are not prepared to be on-site, then we are not prepared to carry out the survey. This is a very important part of the process, and being on-site is not optional.
As a general rule of thumb, we will want to site the new sewage treatment plant as close as possible to the existing septic tank. Therefore there will need to be sufficient room in that area to install a new sewage treatment plant (the hole would be circa 3mx2m) and if you do not have a watercourse or ditch to discharge to then we would also need to install a new drainage field which would take up are area of approx 8m x 8m, depending on the size of the property and the results of the percolation tests.
Sometimes we can place the new sewage treatment plant in a driveway; this is at our discretion and only if there is nowhere else for it to go. I’m afraid that not wanting to disturb your lawn or flower bed is not a reason why the new sewage treatment plant can go in the driveway. Under current building regulations, a driveway is not a suitable location for a drainage field, and therefore, that is not an option.
We will need clear access to the installation site with a minimum width of 2.5m and a minimum height of 3m. If this is not achievable, it is unlikely that we can proceed. If it is achievable by removing overhead obstructions such as tree branches, or by widening access by taking down walls, fences, hedges, etc., please let the surveyor know that you are happy to do this; any additional work required would be your responsibility.
Due to the added complications that this would create, we would not wish to proceed on that basis.
This could be a solution; you would need to discuss it with your neighbour prior to the survey, as the surveyor would need to check the route and take photos along it. Ideally, your neighbour would also be signing up to the scheme, and therefore, the installations can be done at the same time. If we are crossing any 3rd-party land to get to your garden, the owner of that land would need to sign our standard access contract before any work starts.
It is important that anything that we have highlighted to you at the survey stage that needs to be done is completed at least a week prior to installation. This may include, but is not limited to, the removal of plants, hedging and the trimming of trees. The diversion of any stormwater that currently enters the septic tank into proper soakaways. Any repair work that is necessary to the rest of the foul drainage system in order that the new plant can operate correctly.
Our team may start arriving as early as 7 am; therefore, it is important that all vehicles are moved from the driveway and access routes prior to this time. A mains water supply will need to be available to the installation team while they are on-site. If multiple properties feed into the tank, we may need to draw a supply from each property, and the cost of any water used is the homeowner’s responsibility.
Our electrician will also need access to the inside of the property during the installation.
You will not lose your water supply during the installation. We do ask you to keep the amount of wastewater you put into the foul drainage to a minimum for around 48 hours whilst we install your new plant. i.e., avoid loads of laundry washing and maybe have a short shower instead of a bath. Our on-site engineers will let you know once everything is back to normal.
This will be discussed with you prior to the installation; however, generally, if the septic tank is currently at the rear of the property, the new sewage treatment plant will be installed there. As a general rule of thumb, we would need to be able to drive machinery the size of a small car to that area.
It should be kept in mind that we will have various vehicles and deliveries on-site and arriving throughout the installation. We do, therefore, ask that any vehicles that are normally parked on the driveway be parked elsewhere during the period we are there. It is also essential that children and pets are accompanied at all times whilst we are on-site for their safety and ours.
We will usually arrange to have your old septic tank emptied to coincide with the start of work. Subject to suitable access to your existing septic tank and assuming it is close to the installation position of the new sewage treatment plant, the old septic tank will be decommissioned, and you will no longer see it once the work is complete, i.e., the area will just become part of your garden.
This is subject to the site survey and other factors during the installation process, so please be aware that it is based on our best endeavours.
We may need to use electricity on site, and we will certainly need to use your water supply. An integral part of the installation process is filling the new tanks with water as the installation progresses, to prevent them from “popping” out of the ground until the concrete is set. This means we will ask you to leave your taps on for an extended period. Any of these costs is borne by the homeowner or tenant.
To put it in perspective, a medium-sized tank that serves a 5-bedroomed property will hold around 4800 litres of water, which would cost around £13 to completely fill.
We make it very clear to everyone that the area around the installation will be left tidy and flat, assuming, of course, that it was when we arrived! We are not landscapers, and the scheme does not cover the costs of relandscaping, seeding, turfing or replacing any plants, hedges or fences that need to be removed for the installation to proceed. Please, therefore, be prepared that some effort by yourselves may be necessary to return your garden to how you like it.
As part of the installation, we will provide you with a sign-off certificate from Building Control to confirm that the drainage aspect of the installation has been carried out to the required standards. To send you this certificate, we need your signature on a building control compliance form as soon as the drainage aspect of the installation is complete. This will be sent to you electronically via DocuSign.
You should keep the final certificate safely with other important documents about your property.
No, we need to ensure that our service engineers can access the area where the new sewage treatment plant is located at any time for breakdowns and servicing. We always try to let you know when we are carrying out a scheduled visit. There may be times when we need to service the equipment at short notice, and therefore, the inspection lids should not be covered with shingles, mats, flower pots, etc., as this will make it difficult to identify their location and access the equipment.
If we have arranged a visit with you and we find that we are unable to access the equipment when we arrive, then we do reserve the right to still charge you for that visit.
The new sewage treatment plant will require an annual service in line with the General Binding Rules and the manufacturer’s recommendations to ensure the plant is operating correctly. During this visit, we will also advise you whether the plant needs to be desludged, which, on average, occurs every 2-3 years.
During the first year, we will also conduct at least 3 additional visits to the plant to perform water tests.
Yes, as with all sewage treatment plants, the plant will need to be emptied; however, the Graf system operates extremely efficiently and reduces the amount of sludge that builds up in the tank. We find an average interval of around 2-3 years between emptying. Circa 200mm of sludge should be left in the new plant at all times, even at the point of emptying.
