I thought that a septic tank was, or could be, a sealed unit, we don't seem to have a lid to ours, so emptying would be an issue.

We tried googling & it said that a septic tank should be emptied annually....is this so?

It is not usual to empty a concrete, traditional, septic. It's important to keep natural bacterial processes going to dissolve the waste. You can buy sachets of bacteria to flush down the toilet. Look for WC-Net in many supermarkets. Also avoid putting bleach down as it kills the bacteria.

I was told once that you could also put
A bit of raw meat in their as well ,
To keep the bacteria going

I thought you had to put a live suckling pig in the tank ...... or was that in the scrumpy?

Either way the aroma has got to you

Planes Pete,

Is WC-Net the selling name ? and in which shelf with what kind  of products should I look ?

Rob

Yes that is the name and you will find it on shelves with the Toilet cleaning products.

PlanesPete wrote on Jun 12^th, 2016 at 7:33am:

It is not usual to empty a concrete, traditional, septic. It's important to keep natural bacterial processes going to dissolve the waste. You can buy sachets of bacteria to flush down the toilet. Look for WC-Net in many supermarkets. Also avoid putting bleach down as it kills the bacteria.

Thanks, it's what I though. We do use the sachets.

Following on from the bleach comment, if I'm refreshing my cisterna with bleach, will that be an issue?

The very small quantities of bleach in the cisterna won't be a problem. The bleach disperses pretty quickly and is too dilute to affect the septic.  :)

Hi folks
I have the same problem. Smell coming through one sink in particular. However I noticed it was worse on windy days and sometimes worse when the wind was in a particular direction. I went for the high tech solution. I  put two plastic plant pots over the breather tube, you can twist them round to regulate how much room there is for the wind to blow through. It's loose fitting and allows the breather to work. Up to yet, touch wood it's working.  Worth a try.

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The U bends here are often very shallow and the wind can push the water out and alow the smell to come up. Spanish usually don't fit an air pipe either, in the UK you have a pipe going right up to roof level to stop the U bends getting emptied when a loo is flushed. If we notice a pong then we let a little water into sink and bath to refil the bends.