Hooking up to Town Sewerage

Hi guys,

We have just made a verbal offer on our first PPOR (exciting/nervous times!) and it is pending all of the usual building/pest/finance - but also pending the agent/solicitor communicating about Acid Sulphate Soil which was mentioned in the draft contract.

The reason I mention that is due to the town going from septic to town sewerage at the end of the year (approx - it has been put off a few times already)

I am not sure who to speak to to get a better idea of where we would stand. The current system is a septic with run off to another area of the yard. The pipe has already been run at the back of the property, and at a guess we'd be looking at digging up 40m's to run the pipe from the septic through to the pipe at the back of the property. It'd likely have to be reasonably deep (with the slope of the land), but in saying that the whole town will be in the same boat, so whilst careful - it's not the end of the world at this stage.

Who would be the best person to speak to about this? A plumber? Do they perform the entire process? My concern with the soil is that digging it up may be more involved because of the soil type.

Any help will be appreciated.
 
Humpz

I would be talking to the Council. Find out what the plan is as far as laying the sewerage pipe and also connecting ratepayers to it. They may be doing a bulk deal on connecting everyone to the system. Anyway that would be my first port of call.

Kinga
 
What kinga said, talk to the council to see what the go is. Find out the requirements and everything, then maybe talk to a local plumber to help you out.
 
For AS soils, there are a couple of requirements in some councils up in Brisbane.

One priviso, is if you are excavating more than 50m3, you require some council forms to be filled in.

Generally, if you are removing acid sulphate soils from your block, you will need to neutrilise with ag lime, mix into virgin material with rotary hoe, and then test for conformance.

I in the past have had to dose excavated material from a couple of kgs of lime per m3 of virgin soil up to 30kg/m3.

Depends on concentrations.

If you are using it to backfill your sewer line, and considering there will not be any removal off site, you may not need to do anything.

As above guys mention, speak to council.

Generally, if you own a plot with AC soils, this would be on the council register and you would have a AS overlay on your plot.

Cheers,

F
 
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