Ashbourne is the gateway to Dovedale, and the farms and cottages in the dales around it are almost all on their own systems.
We cover Ashbourne, Mayfield, Clifton, Fenny Bentley, Thorpe, Kniveton, Osmaston and the Dove valley villages for septic tank emptying, treatment plant servicing and repairs, installations and drain clearance.
South-west Derbyshire around Ashbourne is working farmland — dairy in particular — and that is the single biggest difference between here and the rest of our patch. The foul drainage serving a farmhouse is rarely the problem. The problem is what else finds its way into it.
Dairy washings, parlour detergents, teat dips and yard run-off are all far stronger than domestic sewage, and all of them will finish a domestic-sized septic tank or treatment plant. Parlour chemicals in particular are designed to kill bacteria, which is precisely what the tank relies on. Keeping those streams separate — with their own containment and their own disposal route — is the difference between a system that lasts decades and one that fails in a few years.
Yard water is the other recurring fault. A gully or a roof drain connected into the foul run will push a week’s worth of water through the tank in an hour of heavy rain, flushing solids straight into the drainage field.
This is limestone country where the dales cut in, with heavier clay and marl on the lower ground towards Ashbourne itself. That mix means percolation results vary sharply over short distances — a field that drains freely at the top of a slope can sit over clay fifty metres away — so testing in the actual location of the proposed field matters more here than almost anywhere.
The Dove and the Henmore are both close at hand and both are good water. Discharges to them are taken seriously, and a septic tank discharging to either, or to a brook feeding them, is the arrangement that now has to be put right.
Dovedale brings a lot of visitors, and a good number of properties around Thorpe, Ilam and Mayfield are holiday lets, camping fields or sites with seasonal facilities. The seasonal pattern — empty for months, then full every weekend — is hard on a plant, and sites with any scale of camping or caravan provision often pass the thresholds where a discharge permit rather than the general exemption applies.
Villages around Ashbourne where we regularly work:
Most farm drainage we survey around here has acquired users over the years: a cottage let out, a converted barn, staff facilities, sometimes a shop or a cafe. Each addition looked small at the time and together they take the system past what it was sized for. If your tank is being emptied noticeably more often than it used to be, that is usually the reason — more on farm and let systems here.
No. They are far stronger than domestic sewage and the detergents kill the bacteria the tank depends on. They need separate containment and disposal.
Yes, along with Mayfield, Fenny Bentley, Kniveton, Parwich and the lanes through the dales.
Sizing is based on peak occupancy including any shower block, and sites of any scale often exceed the thresholds for the general exemption and need a permit. It is worth establishing that before building anything.
Usually because the load has grown — a let, a conversion, more people — or because surface water is getting into the foul run. Both are worth tracing.
Farms, lets and village properties across the Dove valley. Call for a straight answer.