禁漫天堂

Congratulations!

@jeanmandredeix

Glad to hear you approved of the place. :-) And congrats on finding a house you like.

If you have a pension, I suggest you crack on with getting your D visa(s) sorted. It's the usual immigration bureaucracy, so it's probably a couple of months rather than a couple of days.

I think for pension D visa they're a bit more picky on the Bulgarian bank account to receive your pension. Did you manage to open one during your trip?

Awesome!. Out of interest what made you decide on somewhere near Ruse?.

@VillageLife

We didn鈥檛 find one close to there, but we drove there to write a list of prices for materials.

We were open to most areas apart from those with gypsies or too near the river as mosquitoes like me.

We spent a day each with two different estate agents.

The septic tank discussion with one was amusing. She said you use truck tyres and gravel.

@jeanmandredeix

Congrats on your house search I'm so glad you found your dream home!

I'm no expert at all on Dvisa, but I did learn one thing to keep in mind. Apparently there can be a conflict with the visa application and the criminal records check, all being you need the clear criminal check first and they have an alloted time to make the visa application and get approved, which takes some time.聽 A few people online were forced to pay a second time for the criminal record because the visa people took so long and they want the criminal check 6 weeks or less. Might want to ask your lawyer how to avoid that happening.

As for the septic tank, that's what I got 馃ぃ

The outhouse is a hole in the ground (broken loo) with a pit tank that feeds some 25 foot along the front of the garden to some old tires. You can see it in my on YouTube lol.

I researched cost on website OLO dot bg. Can buy septic tanks 2-5k but you'd have to barrier the hole with plastic, sand to stop rips, then 2-3 foot stone for a solid base before backfilling it. Preferably placed near an access point at front of your property so the pump trucks can get their hose to access the hatch.

That's if you put one in yourself, which is cheaper. It can get expensive to have them installed professionally.

Hope that's of some use to you. Best of luck going forward 馃憤 鉂わ笍

The very first thing to do is to check if there's actually a mains sewage system. In our village, mains sewage was installed a few years ago but quite a few properties are still using a septic tank. I coughed up to get connected as soon as it reached our part and it's worked out very well! It would be nice if the mayor could get the problems with the water pressure sorted though..... 馃檮

If you install a septic tank, or even continue to use an existing one, you need to be sure that the "clean water" outlet is legal; if it isn't, and regardless of whether you were aware of it when you bought the property, you can be fined and forced to remedy the situation...

@JimJ - "you need to be sure that the "clean water" outlet is legal"...

Can you expand on what you mean by this a little bit mate? Your advice could be super helpful here, for others in the forum as well as my own situation.

Mine is so outdated I doubt it's "leak proof" and it's been empty for 30 years. Very doubtful that I have any mains water connection for clean water outlets to exist and I've never heard of clean water on a septic tank. While I've laid drains for new builds in the past, have zero experience installing septic tanks.

I know for sure we don't have mains drainage but noticed that's slowly improving in BG as a whole.

Cheers Jim 馃憤

@S25 - Sean

Put simply, the vast majority of old village houses in BG don't have a septic tank - whatever the seller/previous owner might tell you.聽 They have highly illegal cesspits or "direct soakaways" (aka holes filled with old tyres/bricks/"retired" Mafiosi etc), which pollute the surrounding land, and quite commonly the local "water table" (a common misnomer for groundwater deposit/underground watercourse).聽

A proper (and the only legal type of) septic tank has a system whereby "heavy waste" (aka sludge) sinks to the bottom and lighter than water material (aka scum) floats above the water which is the largest part of the contents (until it's so full of sludge it needs emptying).聽 There is an outlet pipe towards the top of the water below the scum layer which, if the septic tank is working properly, has been fairly well cleaned by the biological action which takes place in the cesspit (assuming that you don't poison the flora by bunging bleach/drain cleaner or other toxic chemicals down the sink/loo).聽 That top layer of notionally clean water drains into a soakaway/drainfield.

I'm not sure if that description gives a clear mental picture, so I'm going to try to link to a diagram which make explain it better than mere words (which you'll note that the "artist" who produced the diagram isn't too good at!).聽 The link seems to work, so fingers crossed you can see something immediately below this..

I got to know more than I ever wanted to about septic tanks in France; I lived on a c100 hectare property up a mountain, accessed by a mud track and with no mains water or electricity, about 5km from my nearest neighbour and 25km from the nearest shop. The municipality took a decidedly unhealthy interest in my wildernesses ablution facilities, notwithstanding that they extorted taxes for facilities that they didn't have any intention of supplying, like roads, street lighting, rubbish collection, etc etc....馃��

@JimJ

Frigging French, some say they're worse than Brit government for over legislating lol. On the upside, at least it gave you useful education. Thanks for the in depth explanation and the diagram. I'm guessing so long as it soaks away into a flowerbed or a pond for additional natural cleansing it should be okay, right? All being it gets it's regular checks, maintainantence and empties, recorded in a folder somewhere in case the Bulgarian gastapo send their peeps to check?

Top info either way. Need to learn more what would make a self install legal and complient

@S25 - Sean

Buying the correctly-sized and properly certified septic tank, and installing it as per the manufacturer's instructions, is mostly easier and quicker than taking the BG Bodger route. It'll come with a certificate, only valid if installed to specification; that will usually cover your a*se if anyone ever asks whether it's kosher.

You don't want it draining into your flower bed - if someone causes a Mass Extinction Event in the system (ie bungs something toxic to the flora down the drain/loo) then you'll get some very nasty "water" in your flowers. Best case scenario is a bad smell, worst case is a wasteland where you used to have flowers. You need a proper soakaway (usually a big hole filled with gravel) - and it can't be too close to any neighbour's land. If you're thinking about a pond, you could look at a Reed Bed system, but they're pretty uncommon here and might well be misunderstood by neighbours/the KhaziKops 馃榿 They also do need proper looking after, not always easy if you're away a lot...

@S25 - Sean

Johnny Frog is MUCH better at red tape games than John Bull - but of course the Greeks can trump them both hands down.... 馃槺

Reed beds would work for the outlet water if the house is mostly occupied. But if the house is mostly empty, there's not going to be enough water flowing into the reed bed.

As @JimJ says, the critical thing with waste systems, whether a legal septic tank or illegal cesspit, is what goes down into it. Anything that will kill the "good" bacteria the system needs -- stuff like bleach, antiseptics, many of the household cleaning products from the supermarket, even too much of "natural" cleaning products like vinegar and bicarb -- or overwhelming it with more input than the system is designed for, is going to cause an unpleasant result.

@janemulberry

Indeed so - and an "unpleasant result" can easily entail a visit from the Poop Police - and an order to start demolishing the offending construction...馃挬

Given the rather amusing Anglo hang-ups about toilets and "bathroom waste-paper bins", it can't be overemphasised that only bodily waste should go down the loo, as toilet paper or, even worse, wet wipes (even the "flushable" type) will cause serious headaches.聽 If a new system is being installed, domestic grey water can go into the septic tank; here in BG, it's not unheard of for rainwater drains to run into them as well - a pretty bad idea as the volume of water can easily overwhelm even a big one.聽 Rainwater should, ideally, be recycled for watering the garden (or use in the loo); otherwise you need a decent soakaway, as far from your own and neighbouring houses as possible - and not uphill from anybody you don't hate...馃槑

Great tips, I got 2 wells at the front and the tank will be between the 2, so the soak would need to be central garden. It's certain large enough not to affect neighbors or the ground water/wells. Got a large drainage trench right outside the boundary on public access for the rainwater. Think you right though, a Reed bed would be unaffective if I'm not there enough and very little rain in the region.

Detergents an obvious no no but no loo roll? Dare I ask a good solution for this, men being men and all? 馃槀馃槀

I'd prefer a compost Loo all round tbh, but thinking longer term if I ever decided to sell, the buyers might not agree with that perspective.

Thanks to @jeanmandredeix

For mentioning funny convos with agents about septics... Been a sheducation this thread!

The solution is a separate bin for toilet paper in the bathroom which then goes in the rubbish. Which seems to me to be more polluting as poopy paper is going wherever the rubbish goes. Unfortunately our house is located right next to the big skip for the rubbish. The lid is never closed, it's windy here, and some people empty the bathroom bin straight into the skip, meaning the contents can blow onto the street! Not nice!

I made sure to have fast dissolving tp (sold as camping toilet paper) in our place in case we forget to bin the paper and drop it in the toilet by mistake, but even that isn't safe to flush more than very occasionally without risking clogging the system. I had wondered about using a paper bag in the bathroom bin and then burning it as a cleaner option than it going in the skip.

Well, the answer is indeed very simple: paper burns, and poopy-paper burns just as well, so if the petchka/kamina is going, just hurl it in for a few extra calories of heat.聽 Apart from that, just bag it and bin it - using a compostable plastic bag, of course; it'll end up in landfill and biodegrade a lot quicker than the rest of the general household waste around it.

Mind you, given the state of the world these days, I suspect that we're all likely to be in some different, but pretty serious, sh*t soon...馃槬

I do use compostable bags, of course. I might get some paper bags and burn it.

And yes, though we should be concerned about proper disposal of our poop, unfortunately there are a lot of other far more poopy things to be concerned about, too.

Just something to add to the conversation, I'm thinking of adding one of these to the toilet when all is setup, they are good but do require maintenance from time to time, or it can get messy, this can assist with breaking down of solids, still the same rules apply, no baby wipes or kitchen waste.

@CarlS1986

Well, I don't know how big your number 2s are, but pretty sure they will break down just fine without any help from a macerator. :-) These things are useful when you can't put in a standard size toilet outlet pipe, but I very much doubt you'd have this issue with your house.

I assumed he was thinking about the TP issue and avoiding the bin beside the loo, not monster number 2s!

@janemulberry

Lol! , I was.

A macerator won't help you much - macerated toilet paper won't break down much more quickly than sheets, in the kind of timescale we're talking about. As Gwyn mentioned, they're fine for situations where wads of paper are likely to block small bore pipes but you really want to avoid any kind of paper down the khazi, unless you have a septic tank the size of Lake Windermere...

And you'll need to warn any foreign guests that flushing TP costs money - and check the loo basket before they leave and give the beggars a flea in their ear if there's nothing in there. Brits and Yanks are the main culprits, in my experience - they clearly have serious dung hangups that they believe trump your "convenience"...it's been a standing joke in Europe for many decades! 馃榿