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What is the best septic system for clay soils? - Drainage Superstore Help & Advice

How do you know if you have clay soil?

You can work this out by asking yourself what your soil looks like in hot or wet weather conditions. If your garden stays logged with water for a long while after heavy rains, then you may have clay soil. If your garden becomes extremely hard and very dry after a hot spell, then this could mean clay soil, too. The best thing to do is to carry out a percolation test. If you’re pretty sure that you have clay soil, then a percolation test will confirm this for you.

What’s the problem with clay soil and septic tanks?

A septic tank drains a third of its contents away into a soakaway or a drainage field. This is so that as the water passes through this system, it gets partially cleaned by soil because it passes through small gaps in the soil, leaving any debris or unwanted items in the ground. In clay soil, there aren’t big enough gaps between the particles in the soil to allow water to pass through (hence the dry baked ground in hot weather, and water-logged garden during rainy spells). These tiny gaps in clay soil stop the water from passing through and from getting treated. The water cannot go anywhere, despite being pumped out of the septic tank. This leads to dirty, untreated water creating a sodden path around the tank. The septic tank will more likely than not back up too, as the water struggles to leave.

What are the alternatives to clay soil septic tanks?

Clay soils do not support soakaway systems, so avoid any septic system or sewage treatment plant that utilises these.

What’s the best septic system for clay soils?

If the location of your system is close to a watercourse like a lake, river, stream or canal, then we recommend upgrading your septic tank to a sewage treatment plant. High-level sewage treatment plants produce a quality of water that’s clean enough to be pumped straight into a water course. Double-check with the Environment Agency that this is okay, though; you don’t want to be hit with a fine if your watercourse is a rare exception to this rule. Our recommendation, if you’re not close enough to a water course, is to try an aerobic sewage treatment system. This expels a higher quality of water than anaerobic (traditional) sewage treatment plants. This water is clean enough for use in surface irrigation, so if you have a lot of land (common around off-mains properties), you can simply expel it into this.