Boring! Bore-holes etc in Wales

[Graye]

I've been away from the site for a while and it's nice to be back, looking at all the names I recognise! In that time we have sold our house in France and are now "camped out" in Whitby in the smallest cottage on the planet, and with a large houseful of furniture in storage. The only upside is that we will be back in France at the end of the month to rent for a few months while our newest cat addition waits for his passport to become valid.

In the meantime we are looking for a new house, somewhere I can really get into growing our own stuff, keep a few ducks and so on. We have been looking in mid Wales but have been reading some horror stories about bore holes, "private" water, cesspits and septic tanks. We are used to the French style "fosse septique" but I think these may be quite sophisticated compared to the UK equivalents, and probably cheaper to run.

Is there anyone living in Wales (or anywhere with similar arrangements) who can give me a clue about maintaining/servicing/living with this type of setup please? OH was reading horror stories last night about it costing £300 a month to maintain/empty a cesspit. Surely not?

[Graye]

Thanks SusieGee, I appreciate that info. Perhaps it isn't as scary as we thought!

It does sound as if yours is a septic tank rather than a cesspit (I understand these are just storage tanks to be emptied when they are full) as yours drains/soaks away. The French ones are usually three chambers (they have a grease trap, main tank, charcoal filter and an inspection hatch before they soak away) and are reasonably sophisticated once you get the hang of them so I think we would feel reasonably comfortable with their distant cousins. Although I do get fed up with not being to use anything remotely bleachy now and again. I'm not so sure about the basic storage one though - I imagine a lot of emptyings...

We have a couple of places to look at in the next few weeks - we've been looking around Machynlleth, Welshpool, Knighton etc. If you are near any of those I would be grateful for bits of info about them if you have any? We have one in particular to look at which I particularly like which has a new bore-hole, a well which was not producing enough water plus a septic tank so the more pertinent questions we can ask the better! We have a very short list of "must haves" but it's amazing how difficult it is to find the right property and really frustrating to have a 200 mile drive to find yourself victims of "estate agent speak" yet again.

[Millymollymandy]

Hi Graye, nice to hear from you with an update. Good luck with the house searching and bringing new kitty home.

[Graye]

Thanks MMM.

We picked him up from a rescue place down in Andalucia (he's a typical Spanish "nearly Siamese", right colouring, blue eyes, loud squawk etc but looks otherwise like a moggy) then immediately found out the French house had sold after being on the market for over a year. So ever since we've been dashing around to get his passport as quickly as possible. Poor thing has ended up in kennels with his new friend (our other Spanish cat) until we can get over there to rent for two months. Renting in July/August proved to be a nightmare in France and Andalucia is far too hot in the summer so we just had to come back to the UK in the end. We'll be near Cahors so it will be a new adventure for us. We will be interested to see what Charlie makes of the UK eventually, a long way from hanging around dustbins in the back streets of Salobrena which is where he was discovered.

I'm so looking forward to having somewhere to grow things once we find a new house - plenty of decent soil is a priority. Our soil in France was probably 75% limestone pebbles so clearing a patch to grow in was hard work, we managed four smallish beds and even then things like carrots were impossible. We are now busy looking at sites about boreholes but if anyone else has first-hand experience I would love to hear.

[Millymollymandy]

It sounds like it will be quite an adventure for all of you, not just Charlie.

[pumpy]

Hi Graye, if ever you have any query re; boreholes/pumps don't hesitate to p.m. me. Andrew

[Graye]

Thanks for the offer, Pumpy. I shall almost certainly take you up on that if the house we have our eye on turns out to be anywhere near as good as it seems.