Carlow Precast Treatment Plants

Hi

I purchased a waste water treatment plant from what I believed was Carlow Precast but turns out it is a company called Rooney Concrete Tanks & Haulage Ltd t/a Carlow Precast Septic Tanks.

Just to let anyone who is considering using them that I am not at all impressed by either company.

The pump installed in the tank to bring the waste to the perculation area was not big enough. The site was not properly assessed before installation.

Tried contacting Carlow Precast to deal with this matter but was told to contact Rooney Concrete. The sales person here who I had bought the tank off said he thought the perculation area was on the site of the house. (The perculation area is a few hundred yards away as it is a joint area as part of a cluster of 5 sites). Our site is not big enough to have the perculation area on site.

Eventually I was directed to a company called Kilerrig Engineering who do all the maintenance and repairs on behalf of Carlow Precast and/or Rooney Convrete. To be fair to them they sorted the problem and were very efficient. However at a cost for the bigger pump and quite excessive labour cost for the installation.

I made the mistake of paying the full amount for the tank upon delivery. I don't mind paying for the pump itself, but having to fork out for the labour for the fitting of a pump that I should have been given in the first place is the annoying part. Rant over.....

There are a couple of things about your post that raise flags with me.

1. Its not normally the responsibility of the septic tank supplier to have the site correctly assessed. That's the job of the owner.

2. The septic tank installers can only install the pump and pipe to the percolation area that's permitted by the planning permission. Again its the responsibility of the owner to instruct them with regard to where the dispersal pipework is situated. Unless you retained them to obtain the permission how were they to know? In the present case did you not give them a copy of the planning permission drawing and the assessor's report to work from?

3. Communal percolation areas that are kept separate from a combined treatment system are foreign to me. You either have on septic tank and set of one percolation areas per dwelling, keeping the required distances away from houses, streams, ditches, wells and other percolation areas or you have a group scheme with its own attendant percolation areas.

ONQ.

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All advice on AAM is remote from the situation and cannot be relied upon as a defence or support - in and of itself - should legal action be taken.
Competent legal and building professionals should be asked to advise in Real Life with rights to inspect and issue reports on the matters at hand.

We bought our tank from this company but have come a cropper of who we were really buying from and who covers what.

Took alot of fishing out of invoices (thankfully dh had kept them) to prove what was agreed in terms of warranty etc as like so many companys alot of staff have been let go etc :-(.

We had subsequent problems with pumps. Replaced one using Killerig engineering and within weeks another pump had gone. Killerig were back and said hair had gotten into something and burnt the other pump out. I'm not technical at all but argued that it had to be a design fault for hair to burn out a pump in something thats suppossed to deal with waste water. Then he countered that it had to be baby wipes. (he knew we have a newborn). However I've never put any type of wipes down the toilet so cue another arguement.

The owner said he'd fit the new required pump as he knows my own father and we'd sort it out when we got home from hols. We didn't get any invoices but tbh I don't have any faith in company or product and would like to source a company that offers service contracts.

What company did you enter the contract with?

Just wondering was this Corcoran Precast in Fenagh, Co. Carlow? I had a similar problem regarding the percolation area and pumps failing. In four years I've had them back two or three times per year at €200 a pop. Last time I was so fed up I contacted the Consumer Agency and explained the situation. They said they would contact Corcoran precast if I wanted.

However, knowing this I tackled the repair man the next time stating how ridiculous it was how often he was back to sort out the problem. He replaced all the pumps free of charge and I haven't had a problem since. Should it give problems I won't hesitate to take the matter further.