![\"septic-tank-cover-open163\"](\"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/septic-tank-cover-open163.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe black hose leading into it on the left is a powerwashing hose, doing the final cleanup after the contents were pumped out.\u00a0 (No, I didn’t think you’d enjoy a picture of the contents.\u00a0\u00a0 Imagination is a wonderful tool.)\u00a0\u00a0 It was such a bright day with such contrasty lighting that I\u00a0 couldn’t show the inside of the tank once it was clean.\u00a0 (For some values of clean.)<\/p>\n
In our world, this is a high-end method of waste treatment\u00a0 in some countries (where pit toilets, if any, are common and septic tanks rare), and a low-end method in urbanized developed countries.\u00a0\u00a0 It would be high end in Paksworld of the present day.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anything similar there would be built of stone (since they don’t have concrete, lacking the Romans.)<\/p>\n
A septic tank is essentially a holding tank, but it does have some ability to decontaminate the effluent (the liquid that flows out) through a series of baffled chambers and time and releasing the water into a “tile field” where it waters non-tree vegetation. \u00a0 It requires no mechanical skill to use–but it does need the sludge cleared out at intervals, and any leaks (e.g., from tree roots) repaired.\u00a0 Though the job of manually emptying the sludge is unpleasant,\u00a0 it was routine with septic tanks before sewage pumping trucks were invented, requiring only ladder, buckets,\u00a0 something to put the sludge in (whence it could be hauled out to a pasture as fertilizer.)<\/p>\n
Septic tanks came into use for houses with at least some indoor plumbing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Prior to that, there were pit toilets and outhouses.\u00a0\u00a0 Pit toilets had to be cleaned out one way or another (sometimes by pouring gasoline into them and then burning them out.\u00a0 Very stinky fire.\u00a0\u00a0 You moved the outhouse well away before doing that.\u00a0 I don’t know what they burned them out with prior to petroleum products, or if they just hauled away the remains.\u00a0 I do know my mother told me that fireplace ashes were thrown in to control odor and flies. )<\/p>\n
So what about Paksworld?<\/p>\n
Some houses, in some locations, do have a form of indoor plumbing, unlike our indoor plumbing.\u00a0\u00a0 In some areas,\u00a0 fresh, reasonably clean water is brought into a city via constructed aqueducts, either underground or above ground and dispensed at public fountains and (in a few cases) into individual residences (but never ALL individual residences.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When indoor water sources are available, then indoor water removal is available–usually by a kind of pipe.\u00a0\u00a0 Wood or ceramic pipes predate\u00a0 metal pipes, which are still fairly rare and fairly crude.<\/p>\n
Indoor water, if available, is used for cooking and washing and bathing before it’s used for toilets…the problem of disposing of the “black water” effluent is trickier than the other, to the people in Paksworld.\u00a0\u00a0 They already have jacks–pit toilets–where the waste is more compact and the smell can be controlled by throwing wood ash on it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you add all the water that a household uses for cooking, laundry, and washing of persons…now you have more volume, and in an undesirable slurry.\u00a0\u00a0 You need to invent a septic tank, with its lateral line and tile field, and for that you need space (which, in cities, you’re unlikely to have.<\/p>\n
But in country houses of the rich, if there’s water piped in from a private source, something like a septic tank, rather than a pit toilet, might well exist.\u00a0\u00a0 Consider that such houses usually have attached gardens and small fruit orchards, for the use of the family and house servants, close in paddocks for livestock.\u00a0 Not that hard to build a septic tank, channeling the effluent through an underground network to feed whatever it considered best.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If they think of it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I suspect some estates have them, and some don’t–and more in Aarenis than in the north.<\/p>\n
So the Mahieran estate–the wealthiest right now–will have such a system for the big house.\u00a0 A water storage tank high enough to provide minimal water pressure for water in the house;\u00a0 indoor jacks that drain into the underground tank.\u00a0\u00a0 They will have a separate laundry house and drain from that, but not a septic tank or anything like it–what we call a French drain instead–a ditch full of rocks, leading the water out away from the buildings.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The kitchen cooks-jacks will be separate, too, from the system.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The hunting cabin Beclan was kept in would not have a system like that.\u00a0\u00a0 Not even an outside pit toilet, but chamberpots to be used inside and a cesspit to throw the contents (along with food waste–very little) in outside.
\nMeanwhile, I’m thinking how to tell you about Mr. Flores, who came with his truck and pumped out and power-washed our septic tank and grease trap.\u00a0\u00a0 It takes a certain amount of background, which I’ll try to compress, but not now.\u00a0 Now it’s time to leave for choir practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The historians and archaeologists among you know that plumbing–its existence, variations, quality, and effect on human health (both good and bad)–is highly variable throughout history.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Elaborate systems for providing fresh drinking water, for instance, existed in time (and within a short distance) alongside the simplest, least effective ways of getting water to drink and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,4,53],"tags":[108,112,12,107],"class_list":["post-2145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-contents","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-background","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-research","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2149,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2145\/revisions\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"septic-tank-cover-closed163\"](\"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/septic-tank-cover-closed163.jpg\")
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