Klargester sewage treatment plants

Leading manufacturer Klargester is fitting all its sewage treatment plants with a new high-tech alarm and digital read-out display which will help diagnosis and speed-up the repair process following any component failure.

Alarms are now required for domestic sewage treatment plants (STPs) in the event of power failure under the new European Regulations EN-12566. EN12566-3 Section 6.0 para 6.1.1 states: ‘Plants shall be provided with an alarm to indicate operational failure (for example electrical, mechanical or hydraulic failure).

The manufacturer shall indicate which kind of failure is detected with the alarm’. The Klargester STPs will also now be able to communicate the nature of any fault, including loss of rotation of an RBC module, pump failure, or even dosing pump failure. The display will inform the householder, or maintenance representative on site via a digital display and fault code. The service engineer can thus prioritise the fault and determine what parts to bring. 'Making the process of fault diagnosis faster and more efficient means the plant will be up and running again far more quickly, and the potential for adverse environmental impact following a component failure will be minimised,' says Kevin Roe, UK Sales Manager for Klargester. The announcement follows confirmation that all Klargester's STPs have been tested and passed against the new European Standard - EN12566 Part 3: Small wastewater Treatment Systems, entitling them to carry official CE (Communaute Europeenne) marking, which allows approved manufacturers to trade across the European Union. Roe continues: 'The new standard brings much needed conformity to the industry by defining minimum requirements for sewage treatment plants, including the fact that they must be structurally durable, watertight, corrosion resistant and fitted with an alarm. 'We believe we were the first manufacturer to complete performance testing and it seems likely that the UK environmental regulators will recommend the installation of CE marked products from June 2008 onwards'. Other UK manufacturers currently have a transition period in which to carry out the performance and other specified tests enabling them to ensure that their products comply with the standard's requirements. The normal 12-month transition period has been extended to allow for the lengthy performance test and expires in July 2008. Manufacturers who do not test their products to the standard will not be able to export them for use in other European Union countries, unless they can prove to regulators by some other means that their goods will perform and are of a sufficiently high quality. Importantly, after the July 2008 dead-line all STPs in the UK will need to have been tested and display upon request the performance achieved during the rigorous testing regime.