Disposal of wastewater, black water and rainwater in single-family homes

Owners of new or old dwellings have to comply with certain rules when it comes to sewage disposal. This is one of their responsibilities.

Under the French law of January 3, 1992, all dwellings must be connected to a public sewerage system, or have an individual sewerage system in accordance with the regulations.

If your municipality has a public sewerage system, you must connect to it.

If your home is equipped with an off-grid system, wastewater must be collected and treated before being discharged into the natural environment.

The sanitation of private property is a necessary and important technical element, as much for the comfort of its occupants as for hygiene and public health, and more broadly for the preservation of water quality and the environment at large.

To be effective, the wastewater treatment system must be properly installed and maintained.

When wastewater treatment is carried out by means other than ground-based systems, these must be approved by the Ministries of Health and Ecology, following an assessment of their effectiveness and the risks to health and the environment.

In non-collective sanitation, the size of the tank depends on the number of population equivalents, with a maximum of 20 population equivalents, and not on the number of occupants, which is unreliable because it can change over time.

To put it simply, 1 inhabitant equivalent is equivalent to 1 main room.

The main rooms are dedicated to living or sleeping. They are insulated and must open onto the outside, i.e. they must be equipped with windows, bay windows, doors, etc.

It is therefore the number of population equivalents that is taken into account to determine the capacity of the septic tank or microstation.