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Australia
I ran away from teaching to the country to grow veggies. There are also some chooks and a pair of troublesome goats who were so much trouble they had to go! My simple green life isn't always as simple or as green as I'd like...but I keep trying!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Country Plumbing

The bath and the wash basin have been very slow to drain.
I mean very, very, slow!
I called a plumber.

Tom came and I showed him where I thought the grease trap was.  Uncovered, it turned out to be an unlined hole...and dry.  Mmmm!  Tom located the actual grease trap near to the house.  
Check this out! Pity you can't smell it!


It turns out to be an old concreted laundry trough -  repurposed.  So, no fancy sullage treatment here.  The kitchen and the washbasin drain into the grease trap, which overflows into the other pit (well it does now the pipe is unblocked) and soaks away.

The bath water just disappears somewhere under a large concrete slab.  Now with a bit more forensic plumbing we could probably locate this, but as it works, we aren't going to try to find out unless there is a problem in the future.

In addition, the pump on the house tank is leaking and Tom just laughed when he saw the fixtures.  Basically, it looks like somebody had shares in a garden hose factory.  Even the toilet is plumbed using garden hose.  He is coming back to replace some spouting and fix the leaky pump.

Here are some pictures to help take your mind off the yucky grease trap.  
You've got to love spring!











8 comments:

  1. Oh, I know that smell. A sister in law
    "helped" one Christmas and used our sink like a garbage disposal unit - gravy, fat, cream, etc. We learnt why they're called grease traps. Phew!

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  2. Oh we do love spring (and those blossoms!) but we can also relate to that grease trap a bit. It blocked once (where the kitchen sink drains to) and had to be cleaned manually, so we know what the smell must be like. Good luck with the pipeworks and hope it gets sorted soon!

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  3. We had a similar situation with a pipe disappearing under a concrete slab. Except that ours was the septic overflow pipe and we later discovered that it was a pipe to no where. No where that is other than onto our lawn. And yep the smell of that was something I would not want to repeat. Needless to say I have a new respect for plumbers.

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  4. Glad you got it fixed. We spent a couple years here fixing our septic before it was finally really fixed.

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  5. ewww. lucky there are flowers to make things right.

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  6. We are going to be using a greywater system on our new house. We've worried that if we do things wrong we could end up with a sess pool. We are moving in Oct 1 so wish us luck.

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  7. The flowers are adorable! And with regards to greaser trap we should have proper maintenance to avoid blocked pipe problem. :-)

    domestic plumbing nsw

    ReplyDelete

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