Installation

The reed filter is filled with 60 cm of aggregate. The drop (height between the bottom of the inlet pipe and the aggregates) is at least 20 cm. The aquatic plant filter is filled with 40 cm of aggregates. The drop is 10 cm.

It may be necessary to cut trees that could interfere with the passage of pipes or the installation of the system. There are no trees within a perimeter of at least 3 metres around the Sanitation Garden.

The parts kit is shipped from the Aquatiris logistics platform located at the headquarters in Bréal-sous-Montfort (35). The rotationally moulded plastic parts (lifting stations, pits, distributors and manholes) are manufactured in Dol-de-Bretagne (35), less than 100 kilometres from the logistics platform. The aggregates are supplied from a local quarry as close to your home as possible.

The self-installation of an Aquatiris Sanitation Garden is subject to conditions. Follow-up by an Aquatiris professional is mandatory (at least three visits), as is purchasing the parts making up the system from Aquatiris. The savings are mainly made on the cost of labour.

Each Aquatiris expert accompanies you locally from study to installation and can call on their local network of installers or proceed with the installation themself.

It is also possible for you to install your own sanitation with self-installation. In this case, we will provide you with all the documentation and accompany you with site visits.

The Aquatiris Sanitation Garden only requires 10 m² per filter (approximately 25 m² in total).
The discharge area will be sized according to the capacity of the soil to infiltrate water.

The planted filters are made without using the existing soil,

so it doesn’t matter whether the soil is clay, silty or sandy.

If the soil does not allow the treated wastewater to infiltrate, it will be evacuated by another means, such as discharge into a ditch, river, or the rainwater network.

The adapt to all terrains.

When it comes to slopes, it is preferable to have a drop of more than one metre.

If this is not the case, we equip our installation with a lifting pump.

Installing individual sanitation requires a soil study. This study will be carried out by your local Aquatiris expert or a general design office.

The soil study for sanitation has several elements:

• Soil study (geology of the underlying soil, soil texture, soil depth, presence of rock, permanent or occasional water saturation, permeability test, etc.).
• Environment study (ditches, watercourses, water catchments, flood-prone areas, sensitive areas, etc.) and other possible constraints (access to the plot, inconvenient underground structures or networks, etc.)
• Definition, size and location of the Sanitation Garden
• Definition, size and location (if applicable) of the means of drainage of the treated wastewater
• Sanitation project plans

There are indeed planted channels that keep a tank for pretreatment. Aquatiris no longer wishes to use these installations for several reasons.

First of all, the performance and durability of such an installation are significantly lower than when the effluents are pretreated directly in the planted filters. In fact, wastewater remains in a confined anaerobic space (without oxygen), which makes it septic and difficult to treat.

In addition, this does not eliminate the major drawback of traditional solutions: the tank! And, yes, that is what is responsible for the secondary sludge that must be treated at a wastewater treatment plant. Did you know that a wastewater treatment plant cannot accommodate more than two emptying trucks per day? Beyond that, the plant is suffocated and heavy electricity-consuming steps (intensive aeration) must be taken to restart it. Pit sludge, called “human waste” in sanitation vocabulary, is a big problem for communities. Specific centres will emerge to treat it, perhaps near you… Ideas are being sought on the side of phyto-purification: plants are being called upon once more, essentially with very short rotation coppice (VSRC) willows.