Linda,
I think ours runs all day, but the aerator is only an overgrown aquarium
pump. That runs for 15 min then stops and the water settles, then the sludge
pumps goes for 5 min to move the settle material into the next tank. We
have a 3/4 acre block with just the two of us so the recycled water is not
enough to keep the whole garden going - unless we take really long showers
:-) The clean water pumps out 25 litres at a time as that chamber fills up.
However it is great for the bromeliads and the shade garden which likes the
short bursts of intermittent water throughout the day. I reckon if the space
is big enough and the soil suitable more people should have the treatment
systems.

Unfortunately our neighbour have 7 people living in the house on a much
smaller block and slightly above ours, so if he doesn't keep all his
sprinklers working or we have heavy rain we get the run off. Problem is we
have about 12 inches of good top soil then deep clay. He is also prone to
not servicing his system so at times the quality of the water coming out is
suspect. That's the downside - when people don't look after their systems.

Cheers,
Geoff

"Linda H" wrote in message
...
Geoff & Heather wrote:
Linda,

Our serviceman says ours runs for 15 min then stops for 5.
Geoff


Oh okay. I wonder how many times a day it does that. I looked at the
Septech website after responding to Pat's question and that said it can
run for about 6 hrs a day! There are only 2 adults most of the time at
home (1 adult child only home weekends) and ours doesn't appear to run all
that often but it's very quiet so I only notice it when near it.

Also, I gather Pat was wondering on the costs of running them. We've been
in our new place less than a year and we took a lot of care considering
running costs of power and appliances for the new house (we have no gas
mains in our area) but admittedly we forgot all about the running costs of
the waste system.

We had to have it anyway but we were incredibly surprised at how very low
our power bills have been and that is with the treatment plant tacked on.
In fact until now I forgot about its running costs. So from what I gather
treatment plants don't cost much to run at all.

Treatment plants are a brilliant thing. I reckon if people are building
on a large enough block in the suburbs and can allow room for the drippers
they'll be glad they installed it (about 200 square metres under mulch was
the minimum requirement for ours.) They'd never really have to water
gardens again. I don't know the regulations for average sized blocks
though. Everybody in our road has them except for two older properties.