Waste water

As far as possible the Quinta re-uses all the water we take from the lake and boreholes, and as it sits directly above its own water-feed it is of course vital that its wastewater is cleaned and disposed of efficiently.

The first line in the wastewater management is that all wastewater is divided into several different “runs” and areas to avoid saturation at any point.

The dirtiest water is, in fact, not human waste but the wastewater from the washing machines. With the chemicals that are an important part of the cleaning process, this wastewater cannot be re-used, so it has its own dedicated soak-away set apart from any other wastewater system.

The wastewater from the kitchen also has some detergent in it but is far less chemically-laden and can be re-used in the garden once the oils and fats have been extracted. This is done with the Fat-trap situated outside the kitchen which is cleaned twice per year, an operation which takes on average an hour. After the fat-trap this wastewater is piped into the western soak-away.

The main wastewater from the bathrooms is divided into grey-water, (water from sinks, showers and baths), and black-water, (water containing human waste).

Black-water goes into a septic tank with three divisions before entering a soak-away, while grey-water bypasses the septic tank and flows straight to a soak-away.

The Quinta’s wastewater in this regard is divided into 2 septic tanks and 2 soak-aways, (with each division in each septic tank having a man-hole access point), that for the West Wing running west with everywhere else going east.

As with most of the Quinta’s management systems, both septic tanks are far larger than needed, but this has the advantage that they only need emptying once every fifteen years. They were last emptied in 2018 following a 15 year break and it was deemed to have been unnecessary. However, it is prefereable to err on the side of caution in this respect; the last thing anyone needs is a problem with sewage when guests are present.

The septic tank for the Quinta’s eastern half is deep below the woodpile outside the laundry, and before this there are four man-hole access points in the Motorway, (the Quinta’s main service area between the kitchen and the laundry). The soak-away is deep underground in front of the two staff bedrooms. The wastewater that soaks away from here is caught again into another large soak-away ditch running east below the greenhouse and this waters those trees situated there.

The septic tank for the West Wing is situated in the guest’s car-park and there are six man-hole access points behind the West Wing and one more in the car park – these latter have not been found to ever be necessary during the last 25 years, but they’re there anyway, and are inspected once a year just to make sure that there are no roots that could cause future problems.

Due to the Chinese Banyan tree – an important tree that attracts much wildlife – the Quinta needs to have to have an expanded soak-away system for the West Wing wastewater system. This is comprised of a separate, large, holding tank between the septic tank and the soak-away so that no roots can find their way into the pipework coming from either the septic tank or the grey-water feed. This holding tank is situated underneath the car-park. It has an emergency man-hole access point should this be necessary. The soak-away is situated between the cars and the Banyan tree.