Balancing down under
When asked to install a small sewage treatment system for a 2 bed-roomed house, in Brisbane Australia, we knew we would need to be really innovative. Something we had not tried before.
House was on concrete piles, and the floor level was about 1m above the ground. The objective was to get wastewater through the plant, all gravity, and through to disinfection. From there treated water would discharge onto the lawn.
Balancing - the process of leveling high peak flows (morning and evening) and low flows (when everyone is at work, or sleeping). This is important to maintain the correct biological process. Normally we would have a small submersible pump , gently feeding the bio-reactor.
But . . . could balancing be accomplished without this pump? And would the new design avoid any negative effects of peak loads?
Yes - Scarab did it!
And - the plant increases it's capacity during peaks, which gives the bacteria more time (retention period) to biologically process the water.