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Drainage in Bulgarian Villages (No) Drainage in Villages?

While the drainage facilities in the Bulgarian cities and towns are well developed things doesn't look like this in most Bulgarian villages. The development of the Bulgarian village has had little to zero priority in developing during the old regime that is why there are many places where there are no underground drains and rainwater is left to soak away. Drainage problems will not always manifest themselves immediately;
rainwater will slowly erode the fabric of your house and problems may not become apparent until damp patches starts to appear. Failure to tackle your drainage issues can result in costly remedial measures, which could have been avoided through diligent planning in the first instance.



Observe the Lie of the Land

Many people fail to take note of the land their property sits on. It is vital that you observe the landscape surrounding your plot.

If your house is built on a slope or incline, rainwater will run off from higher ground and engulf or maybe even flood portions of your house. If your home is adjacent to or traversed by a stream, it may overflow during periods of heavy rainfall. If your home is located in a flood plain then adequate drainage should be your first priority.

If you do not know the area well, it is wise to talk with your neighbours to determine if there have been any instances of high water or an excessive surplus of water in periods of extensive rainfall.

Many houses are built on soil instead of solid rock. Soil types vary from region to region and even within a 5-acre area. You need to determine if the soil is stable, especially if you intend to build on a hillside. Some soils do not absorb water very well and this could present big problems when building your septic tank.

The Septic Tank



Septic tank is an alien concept to all who have been used to flushing the loo and leaving the rest to the council! Bulgaria does not have a national waste management system and it is left to the individual property owners in the Bulgarian villages to take responsible for all waste and water flushed through their household drainage pipes. It is therefore essential that you ensure your property has an adequate sized underground septic tank to hold all of your waste.

A septic tank is a watertight box usually made of pre-cast concrete, concrete blocks, or reinforced fibreglass, which lies below the ground. Access is via a metal hatch above ground. When household waste enters the septic tank several things occur: Lighter-than-water organic solid material floats to the surface and forms a layer of what is commonly called “scum”. Bacteria in the septic tank biologically convert this material to liquid. Inorganic or inert solid materials and the by-products of bacterial digestion sink to the bottom of the tank and form a layer commonly known as “sludge”. Only clear water should exist between the scum and sludge layers. It is this clear water that should overflow into the soil absorption area.

You need to contact either the local water authorities or another private company to empty it on a regular basis. The frequency with which it needs emptying will depend on the size of the tank and the amount of use.

Gutters and Down Pipes



In heavy rain, a lot of rain falls onto the roof of your house and it is important to allow it to drain away from the house through a reliable gutter system. Gutters should be 100 mm to 112 mm in order to catch the rainfall effectively. The rain then flows into a down pipe, which should be 68-75 mm in diameter. Guttering and down pipes are available in UPVC and in aluminium in Bulgaria.

In most Western European countries, one the rainwater had flowed from the roof into the guttering and down pipe;
it would pour into a gulley, which would take the water off into the underground drainage system. However, the lack of drainage in Bulgaria means that you need to consider various alternatives.

At the bottom of the down pipe, a collar can be fitted to point the water away from your property. Many Bulgarian builders neglect to add this vital piece of drainage equipment and failure to do so will result in water seeping into the walls and foundations of your house. This method is adequate, but not the best option. In addition, you must be certain that once the rain has exited the collar it does not pool in close vicinity to your house. It must drain away from the property in order to be effective.

Drainage Trenches



Trench DrainageAnother solution to drainage issues is to build a French drain around your property. This is an in-ground trench that captures groundwater. This form of hidden piping can trap water before it enters your house. You can use the French drain to collect ground water and divert it to a low spot on the land, away from your house.

Building a French drain is relatively simple: dig a trench 15 - 30 cm wide and 15 - 30 cm deep around your house. Line the trench with 10 cm of washed gravel in the bottom of the trench. Then install a 10 cm perforated drain pipe on the bed of gravel. Cover the trench with another 10 cm layer of washed gravel. Place a 10 cm layer of straw on top of this layer of gravel. The straw protects the lower gravel and the drain pipe from being choked with silt or sediment from the soil. Finish the trench by filling it with washed gravel to within 2.5 cm of the top and then cover with soil.

French trenches need not be confined to the area around your house. They can be used to drain water from your garden or drive too.

I have seen the damage to property in some bulgarian houses in our village, the cracks full length of the property and subsidence. been in one where the internal floor has sunk three foot on one side of the room, little chance of repairing as the lady is totally alone, ill and in poverty. family do their best but can only meet her substinence needs. poverty is real in bulgaria, rather sad.

I have seen it in new builds where the builder has not connected the water pipes and run under the house, eventually all the floors will lift and the stench is awful.

slightly how does venice survive being constantly flooded.

I hear what your saying starlite and yes I agree its a real problem I have seen in the winter after the thaw so many Bulgarians surround by sewage and yet they seem to take it a being normal which I suppose for some of them it is which leads me to another point and that is maybe this is why everything in Bulgaria grows so well? not a nice thought I know but you never know?????

This is very true carmen I've often wondered how it is that so much grows so easy in Bulgaria, so I decided sometime back to see what I could find about it and there was some interesting points so have a read below .

Urine and its utilisation as a fertiliser

One person produces annually appr. 500 l urine. The urine fraction contains
98% of the nitrogen, 65% of the phosphorus, and 80% of the potassium
excreted by a human. Most of the nitrogen in human urine is in a form
suitable for plants, for example ammonia nitrogen (Kirchmann and Pettersson
1995, Claesson and Steineck 1996). The nitrogen content in stored human
urine depends on the flushing capacity of the toilet water since flushing causes
dilution (Jönsson 1997).
Pure urine is microbiologically fairly clean when passed by a healthy per-
son. There is, however, a risk of contamination of the urine by faecal mate-
rial. Heavy metal contents are much lower in urine than in solid waste but
higher than in rain and surface water. The N fertiliser use efficiency of urine40
is lower than that of ammonium nitrate due the larger gaseous N losses from
urine (Kirchmann and Pettersson 1995).
Stored human urine normally has a high pH (8.6–9.2), which increases
the risk of ammonia losses during storage and after spreading. Ammonia
emissions are both a resource problem and an environmental problem
(Löfgren et al. 1998). The high pH in human urine may have a positive effect
in killing infectious bacteria and viruses (Höglund et al. 1997).
Diluted with water (5–10% dilution), clean urine is suitable for nitrogen
fertiliser for lawn and ornamental plants. Urine can also be used as additive
nutrient in yard composts, but its use as fertiliser for edible plants should be
investigated.
With separating toilets, the urine is not usually collected and used as ferti-
liser in the garden, but instead led into grey waters and absorbed into the
ground through a septic tank or sand filter (Malkki et al. 1997). With regard
to nutrient recycling, more attention should be paid to the utilisation of
urine as fertiliser as it contains more nutrients than faeces.
In Sweden, the utilisation of human urine in grain cultivation has been
researched. In 1997, an application of human urine, containing 100 kg of
total nitrogen per hectare, yielded 68% of the harvest of plots fertilised with
the same amount of nitrogen in mineral fertilisers. In 1998, yields from plots
fertilised with human urine were at the same level as yields from plots ferti-
lised with an equal amount of nitrogen in mineral fertilisers. (Steineck et al.
1999)
Since most of the nitrogen is lost immediately after urine has been spread,
it is recommended that it should be composted deep in the field (Jönsson et
al. 1996). For hygiene reasons, urine should be stored in a sealed vessel for
six months before spreading.
For the farmer, the spreading of urine in the field makes sense only if the
benefit exceeds the costs and the use causes no harm to the environment or
health. The financial value of urine is based on the fertilising effect of its
nutrients which are suitable for plants: the use of artificial fertilisation can
be reduced. Nevertheless, even if the spreading of urine in the field is techni-
cally possible and financially profitable, it can still be hindered by public
opinion and prejudice. The labour and machinery costs of urine transporta-
tion can easily exceed the value of the nutrients. Furthermore, spreading the
urine at the wrong time or unevenly on the field can cause considerable crop
failures (Malkki et al. 1997)

Faeces and its utilisation as soil conditioner

One person produces appr. 100–200 g of faeces per day, the dry matter con-
tent of which is about 20%. Human faeces contain very rich ecosystems of
versatile micro-organisms. Bacterial numbers such as 1010/g have been pre-
sented (Ketchum 1988). In addition, there are high numbers of viruses, pro-
tozoa and fungi. These micro-organisms are strictly or facultatively anaero-
bic and many of them cannot be cultivated. Thus the numbers presented are
not at all accurate and microbiological numbers vary according to diet;
moreo-
ver the microbial distribution in faeces is very uneven.
Many pathogens that enter the human body orally are enteric. They have
been found to be excreted unevenly in faeces and many people without any
clinical symptoms can be emitting pathogens. Human faeces are thus very
liable to spread enteric micro-organisms to other persons. From the point of
view of hygiene, it is extremely important to avoid all circumstances where
fresh, unhygienised faeces can contaminate human food, water, or other
persons directly.
Raw or partly composted faeces have to be composted before use to avoid
the spreading of possible pathogens. They are best composted with bio-waste
and garden waste, as this way the carbon/nitrogen relation becomes opti-
mum. The bio-waste causes the microbe population to become varied and
the composting process to speed up. Toilet waste has to be composted for at
least six months, including summer months, before it is spread on the ground.
(Salkinoja-Salonen 1983)
The nutrient content and hygienic quality of composted toilet waste have
been studied very little, which makes such waste more difficult to use. The
usual way to utilise composted toilet waste is to spread it in the yard under
bushes or on wasteland. Owing to biased attitudes towards composted fae-
ces, people rarely use it as soil conditioner or fertiliser for vegetables (Malkki
et al. 1997).
At present, composted toilet waste is of little significance as fertiliser or
soil conditioner for households (Malkki et al. 1997). This fact is also sup-
ported by Hagalund and Olofsson (1997) in their research, according to which
utilisation of the nutrients in sludge, urine, and toilet manure still functions
poorly in Swedish eco villages.

Conclusions

Human excreta are a valuable source of nutrients. Their use should be pro-
moted in order to replace some of the artificial fertilisers used in agriculture.
For the time being, there are many unanswered questions which need to be
researched before human excreta can be widely used in plant production.
For agricultural purposes sewage sludge is the most important municipal
waste in the Nordic countries. In order to increase the demand for sewage
sludge and composted bio-waste, their quality has to be improved to meet
the requirements. Quality control has to be strict to assure the consumer
that the use of a composted product will not cause problems.
The nutrient content and hygiene of composted faeces and urine should
be studied further to enable clear instructions for their use to be drafted. The
utilisation of toilet waste is being hindered by prejudice and lack of informa-
tion – only by efficient information can we influence public opinion.
The development of composting and separating toilets should also be pro-
moted to obtain functional, easy-to-use, and hygienic models to compete
with flush toilets. Many of the present models require too much time and
trouble from their user, which no doubt reduces their popularity.