Do-it-yourself Concrete Well

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Thanks to modern building materials, it has become much easier to arrange a sewerage system in a country house than it was in the last century. Today, living outside the city does not exclude urban comfort - the presence of a bath, shower, toilet, hot and cold water directly in the country house itself, in a cottage or in a country house. How to make with your own hands, without resorting to the services of specialists, the simplest version of a septic tank (well) for draining the water used in the house?

Step 1. Digging a hole for reinforced concrete rings

This type of septic tank is resorted to quite often today. Although it is already considered outdated, since it was replaced by septic tanks made of new materials, more convenient to use, modern, however, no one is going to forget about sewer wells made of reinforced concrete rings.

To make such a well in your suburban area, you must first mark the place on it where the well will be installed. A pit is dug on the site from the side of the sanitary room of the house, where the toilet, bath, and so on are located.

It is advisable to dig a hole further from the house, say, retreating 10 meters from it. This is necessary both for hygienic purposes and in order not to violate the foundation and integrity of the house. By the way, the water artery of clean water in the area that is used for food (well, well) should be 30 meters further from the sewer. It is also necessary for hygienic purposes.

A hole for the rings is dug in two ways. The first is digging with the gradual lowering of the rings into the hole and the second is digging the entire hole at once. The first method is more complicated, moreover, not rational in terms of labor costs for it. Therefore, it is better to consider the second method here, when the whole hole is dug under all the rings at once.

The hole must be dug so that it is 20 cm larger than the diameter of the rings. The diameter of the pit will be larger - it will be more convenient to install the rings in the pit. In addition, crushed stone or gravel will need to be sprinkled between the ground and the rings. Rings of concrete goods, we will immediately stipulate, come in different sizes. The sizes of the rings are selected depending on the use of the pit, the possible volumes of drainage of sewage water into it, and so on.

It is necessary to dig a hole in the warm and dry season of the year, so that it is clear that the water that comes through at the bottom of the hole is not rain or melt, but an aquifer of soil. The total size of the pit must be adjusted to fit all rings of concrete products, taking into account that the well is covered from above with a cover made of concrete products.

Step 2. Installing rings in the pit

To install the rings in the prepared hole, a special lifting vehicle is called. Typically, these types of special equipment are possessed by those production bases that sell or themselves produce reinforced concrete products, including rings of reinforced concrete products. That is, you order rings and a cover from a company - it will also provide special equipment for their installation.

Before the rings are brought to your property for installation, make sure that you have everything ready for mixing the grout. It is even better to have liquid waterproofing on your hands, with which you will need to lubricate the top of each precast concrete ring before installing the next one on it.

If water is formed in the pit during digging, it is pumped out together with the sand with a drainage pump. The last reinforced concrete ring installed should (if the pit dimensions are calculated correctly) protrude 30 cm above the ground level. The top of the sewer well is covered with a reinforced concrete cover with a hole in the middle. At the very end of the work, when you begin to use the septic tank for its intended purpose, you will need to purchase a decorative plastic or rubber cover for this hole and fit it tightly onto the hole of the pit so that an unpleasant odor does not emanate from the pit.

Step 3. Preparing to connect the septic tank at home to the septic tank

In the second or, if the soil in your area freezes to a deep level, in the third ring of concrete products you need to make a hole for a wide sewer pipe, which will go out of the house and connect to the sewer well. The pipe will have to run in a trench deepened at the same height as the hole in the ring.

Excess space around the pipe after installation will need to be sealed with waterproofing material.

A layer of gravel or crushed stone should be poured at the bottom of the septic tank. You also need to pour these materials around it. It would be nice to put large stones at the very bottom, then put a layer of geotextile (it will retain sand) and then put a layer of gravel or rubble.