RA Dalton Success Stories

Our Installation Team were enjoying the sunny west coast recently with a project at a caravan park near Maryport, Cumbria. The customer required an upgrade to their existing sewage treatment system, to comply with the legal requirements stipulated by the Environment Agency. In addition to a series of treatment systems, these stipulations also included a sophisticated UV treatment system to effectively kill any remaining harmful bacteria before discharging to ground.

Due to the sensitive nature of the site, the silty clay nature of the soil and the shallow water table, we had to design a suitable and sophisticated sewage treatment system that would safely and effectively provide full treatment of all incoming sewage and discharge to a drainage field that would be unproblematic for the site conditions.

Following a site visit, our proposal was to leave the existing septic tank in place to collect the primary flow of sewage. We would then install a new twin crude pump station at the discharge point of the existing vessel, and connect this to a new package treatment system. Directly after the treatment system, the effluent would pass through a UV treatment system before a single effluent pump station would transfer the treated effluent to a drainage field. This would be sized according to the flows and loads anticipated, constructed of solid slotted pipework and encased in pea gravel in the excavated area.

Due to the size and nature of the caravan park, it was imperative that alarms were connected to the system in case of any future issues, and the customer opted for a GSM system which sends alarm messages to a number of mobile phones on site.

During the excavation, all the vessels were encased in concrete to prevent displacement during high water table conditions – with the sewage treatment system alone measuring over 11m long, several deliveries of concrete were required for the site! We also had our work cut out ordering and taking delivery of the variety of pipework required. With the various connections between the treatment systems and pump stations, the construction of the drainage field and the inlet and outlet pipework, we fit a total of 826 metres of drainage on site!

This project was a real team effort, with seven of our Installations Engineers working on site throughout the different stages. The complete installation from start to finish, including full commissioning, took a total of seven weeks in the glorious sunshine. Now the customer can be confident that their caravan park is treating all sewage legally, safely and efficiently, and the RA Dalton team are on standby for any future servicing and maintenance required!