Literally! Flowing the *wrong* way out of the drains… oh yes…

So… I’m not sure whether I had already made this clear, but one of the other things that happens here is that we manage a guest bungalow for eco-holidayers, farm stayers, hinterland tourists, visitors to the northern rivers who DON’T want to stay in Byron, people with pets, those seeking an alternative retreat destination that *doesn’t* have a spa and so on!

You can check it out at matiatia.com.au

This week we had some guests visiting, as one does, when one runs such an establishment, with their dog Billy, a border collie, cute dawg. Bad weather for them, I have to say. Good weather for us and ducks… It’s suddenly wintry again and the rain is unstoppable.

Yesterday when I dropped in to chat, as I do, they told me that the kitchen sink was not draining properly, but wasn’t a big deal. Farmgrrl C and I grabbed out trusty tools, thought we’d sort out an S bend or 2, but that didn’t work so I headed for the pantry and grabbed my bicarb and juiced a couple of lemons. C wielded the trusty plunger.

I chucked the bicarb down the sink and poured the lemon juice down after it, and watched the crazy explosion of foam pouring out of the drain with bits of god knows what wrenched out of the S Bend with it. Then Charlene got to work with the plunger and we ended up with a most satisfactory result. No more problems in the kitchen sink.

BUT this morning, more drain drama. The bathroom sink and the toilet were both acting up… the toilet rising dangerously close to the top of the seat before subsiding. We decided to call the plumber and perhaps have another go with the pantry ingredients…

We left with plan in hand, picking up supplies in Lismore then back home. Part way home I get this message from the guests. The toilet has backed up, there’s stuff pouring out of the shower drain, and that stuff isn’t nice stuff, and smells kinda bad… They’ve packed up and are leaving. Nick the plumber says he’ll be there in a flash. I try and placate, let them know it’ll be sorted, but it’s raining and i guess they don’t fel like being shut up inside with their own shit… They’re already on the road home.

 Once we get back home, I go in to check out the damage, doesn’t look too bad until Nick has a go and suddenly there’s a lovely murky water feature flowing out of our shower drain where before there was only gleaming chrome…. eeeeeewwwwwww…

SO Nick does a little sound check on the drains, listens for things that plumbers listen for, wanders around to get a picture of what’s going on, and we head on over to check out the system. If you look back at the map of the farm you’ll notice that we have a reed bed system for filtering the grey and black water from the farmhouse and the cottage. Today I got a closer look at the workings of this system. It’s very cool, and works so well, under most conditions. As Nick said, staring down through the trap into the murky (and stenchy) depths of the settling tank - if you’ve got townies staying, then you’ve gotta watch out - he’s pointing out cotton buds, great WADS of toilet paper (people don’t want to accidentally touch themselves or their excrememnt yanno, so the whole hand wrapping trick is often utilised I guess… uses alot of paper… ), other "sanitary" items…

I asked him if he would mind talking me through the system a bit, so this is how it goes.

All the waste water from the farmhouse and the cottage is routed to a "settling tank". The cottage is quite a long way from this tank, takes about a minute or so for the water to travel along the pipes and reach the tank. The tank has 2 halves, separated in the middle by a baffle. On the inflow side all the heavy waste settles at the bottom heavy metals, earth etc… and the lighter, oilier waste floats on top. It’s an anaerobic treatment which means that it treats the wastewater without the use of air or elemental oxygen. The organic pollutants are converted by anaerobic microorganisms to biogas. It’s pretty steamy in there. The water passes through the baffle, which removes the lighter waste, the heavier waste having already settled in the inflow side of the tank. the outflow side has another filter which catches any smaller foreign matter, like cotton buds!. This water then flows, using gravity (there is nothing mechanical about this system at all) into the reed bed, which in our case is growing taro, arrowroot, gingers, lots of rhizome plants, and some grassy reeds. The reed bed is carefully levelled and full of gravel and plants. There are 2 of them, side by side. The water is then filtered through the gravel and the plants do their bit by getting rid of nitrogen and phosporous in the water and they also respire, I guess, so alot of actual moisture escapes into the atmosphere via the plants. So this water passes through 2 reed beds to the final outflow goes to a chamber located in the orchard. The water I saw flowing into this chamber looked very clear, it was amazing to see the initial inflow and this final outflow. The water from this chamber is then directed to 3 further dumping chambers, and disperses into the ground, nurturing our (very overgrown, but sporting cuuuuute miniature apples) orchard.

So, that was a long post, I apologise, but it was cool to really get down with the shit and see this system in action.

later, dudes 

Vxx