France in Focus

We have received a letter notifying us of a compulsory inspection by a SPANC appointed 3rd party.
We had our old system replaced 2 years ago so it seems a bit early to have it inspected. Apparently they’re doing all the non connected properties in the commune.
Very interesting in their paperwork which I found on-line there is a question about water in the fosse and mosquitos. It’s a real problem around here as several houses use the public ditches for their outflow and the ditches are badly maintained.
We don’t even have a public fosse but are fortunate to have enough land for the outflow to go down the property. SPANC were happy with that 2 years ago so it will be very interesting to see if they have changed their minds.

We had a fosse system which pumped the water through a filtration system (a large hump) and like you, we had plenty of land and the filtered water went into a ditch.
The problem with mozzies is standing water and uncleared ditches will be a haven for them. That said, even if the ditches were cleared, the water would probably remain standing until ot could drain away naturally.

We had the inspection years ago and it was determined to be non-compliant. There was an old outside loo but no sign of a fosse anywhere but as it was only a stone's throw from the roadside ditch I had my suspicions. Close ditch inspection turned up no nasty smells or damp patches so remains a mystery how it worked. A compliant installation back then was a mere €7000+ so I displayed my best "French Shrug" and put the subject on the back burner. Eventually I saved enough to buy a tank and spent 6 weeks burying it with only a garden fork and shovel. It gets emptied three times a year because I couldn't face digging a soakaway in my field, 100 metres uphill from the tank. I have since learned to enhance my French Shrug by pulling out both trowser pockets to show they are empty.