After installing an autonomous septic tank or other type of local treatment plant becomes topical issue than to close sewer hatch at the dacha. After all, quite often this element is not located in the most favorable place - in plain sight, in front of the house. This can be inconvenient, impractical, and, ultimately, not aesthetically pleasing.

Camouflage options

When determining for yourself how to close the hatch in your dacha, you need to remember one thing important condition. With any decoration method, it is important to ensure that access to the hatch, if necessary, is provided quickly and reliably. So you can’t fill the hatch with a layer of soil and plant shrubs on top. But you can hide the hatch with greenery around the perimeter.

In addition to green spaces, there are several other ways to disguise a hatch. These can be decorative elements, for example, three-dimensional figures made of plastic or artificial stone placed around the perimeter, cuts or hemp of wood. If the decoration element is lightweight, it can also be placed on top of the manhole cover.

In one case or another, the following requirements are imposed on decorating materials:

strength;

weather resistance;

relative ease.

Advantages of artificial stone

You can disguise a sewer hatch using a beautiful boulder made of composite material, durable, but hollow inside. This method can be called minimalistic in terms of design. But practical, economical and effective. Artificial stone decoration looks quite massive and leaves a feeling of natural reliability.

It is possible to produce artificial decorative elements simulating materials such as granite, cobalt, sandstone. Around the sewer hatch you can make something like an alpine slide if you surround the boulder with crumbs from natural stone, a powder of sand, plantings of flowers and shrubs.

Structurally, a boulder made of artificial stone consists of two parts. Inside it is a polymer frame, most often made of fiberglass. This material is characterized by increased resistance to temperature changes and mechanical stress. In addition, fiberglass is environmentally friendly. A cladding made from a mixture (crumbs) of various natural materials. This, in particular, can be quartz, sandstone, jasper, etc. The mixed mass is applied to stable frame using various resins.

The weight of most of these decorative elements does not exceed 10 kg. And most often it is about 2-5 kg. Therefore, the boulder can be placed on top of the hatch without any problems. And spread it around artificial turf, sow the area with lawn grass, place certain decorating details, landscape lamps, etc. By the way, next to the boulder hiding the sewer hatch, you can place one or two more of the same “stones” to create a beautiful setting.

You can choose how to decorate a manhole on the Plant Technologies website. Here you can order certain decorative elements with delivery and installation. If necessary and desired by the customer, our employees can go to the site, carry out all the work, and develop a landscape design project.

All work on sewerage equipment has been completed, a septic tank has been installed, and a system for draining excess water from the site has been thought out. All that remains is to decorate the site beautifully, including such an unattractive part as the sewer septic tank. After all, it is often located close enough to the house for the sewage system to function normally. Therefore, the decor of septic tanks and hatches drainage well- not a luxury, but an urgent necessity.

Decorating the hatches of a drainage well or septic tank is carried out so that the decorative element fits harmoniously into the design of the site, and at the same time there is constant access to the septic tank.

Modern construction companies specialize in developing special pleasant little things for home and garden. They make life much easier when pressing difficulties are over and you want comfort and beauty. And, if earlier you could only dream of this, now you have at your disposal a whole set of auxiliary accessories for decoration:

• large stones;
• separate boulder;
• covers and hatches of various shapes and materials;
• lawn;
• flowerbed;
• special designs.

From all the variety, all that remains is to choose your option and play with it so that it looks naturalistic, does not catch the eye and does not destroy the harmony of the landscape.

Stone

Artificial stones help to decorate the hatches of a drainage well or septic tank. The stones are made from artificial polymer material with the addition of natural crumbs. Such crumbs can be zeolite, marble, granite and other rocks, which are designed to provide texture and naturalness to the material.

Artificial stone is given a natural shape and color. It may look like a boulder or large stones. The inside of the artificial stone is hollow and very light, which makes it easier to install and further manipulate.

You can choose an artificial boulder, for example, in the shape of a rock or a small alpine hill, which will have recesses for planting ornamental plants. The imagination of manufacturers is not limited, so you can find any artificial stone that will fit organically into the landscape. The size of artificial stones is chosen so that the manhole covers are completely closed.

There are a great many options for how to design such an artificial stone; you can plant it around the septic tank. lawn grass, make an embankment of large stones of suitable texture and limit it with a border frame, make alpine slide, arrange stones in a group and much, much more.

The material from which the stone is made is neutral to changes temperature conditions and different humidity levels, so it will last more than one season.

Metal hatch

What to do if the septic tank hatch is located in the middle of the sidewalk or right on the driveway. It is, of course, undesirable to install a septic tank in this way, but sometimes there is simply no choice.

Buy a metal hatch, with interesting drawing or ornament. An assortment of such decorative details huge, you just have to choose by price, size and design. Metal manholes are often used in big cities to decorate sewer wells.

Interesting decorative elements, such as a metal hatch, look like an unusual accent and attract attention.

Unusual cover

Made of polymer material, such covers carry decorative elements. These can be sculptures of objects and animals, an imitation of an open book, a lid with a recess where you can pour stones, place flowerpots with grass and flowers, and numerous other options. You can even use a miniature windmill or the Eiffel Tower as a decorative element. Some options imitate wooden stumps, log house well or barrel. Only you can limit the flight of your imagination.

Lawn

Quite often, the location of a lone boulder or alpine slide in the middle of a green lawn is not entirely appropriate. Therefore they will come to the rescue different options roll or artificial lawns.

Artificial lawn will be a good option for the summer, but in winter you will have to remove it. Rolled lawn can be laid quite quickly, and to prevent it from drying out, you need a septic tank lid with a recess into which you can pour earth. This will ensure the viability of the grass.

Flowerbed

Flowerbed – creative option design of the septic tank cover. If you don’t want to install artificial stone, then why not make a flowerbed? You just need to buy a special polypropylene lid with a recess into which you can pour soil and plant flowers. Such a flowerbed will please the eye all summer, and in winter you will have to come up with another option for decorating the septic tank hatch.

Special designs

This group includes all unusual engineering structures that will help decorate the lid of the septic tank and at the same time be mobile. For example, such an element could be a mini-pergola made of metal or wood, a screen or an arch, which will become a support for annual climbing plants. You can build a miniature gazebo or fence. The decor of septic tanks depends on your imagination.

Unusual stream

In addition to decorative overlays and structures, you can use a special technique called a “dry stream” to disguise septic tank hatches and filtration fields. A dry stream can be either a separate element or part of an alpine slide. Natural stone chips are used for it. Such a stone can be zeolite, marble, granite and any other stone. For a “dry” stream, river pebbles are also used.

A stream bed is formed in the area from stone chips, your task is to give it smooth bends and limit the “shores”. This can be done by removing a very small layer of earth and pouring a small embankment along the banks of the “stream”.

The formed outline of the “stream” is covered with stone chips; you can make it plain, striped, or with different color transitions. Zeolite, marble, quartzite, granite or other stone will add contrast and color to your stream.

The manhole cover must be flat. She gets coated adhesive base and covered with stone chips. This septic tank decor is easy to make with your own hands.

DIY artificial stone

If exit points and hatches sewer system There are several on the site, then you can build stone decor for septic tanks with your own hands. Making such an overlay stone is not at all difficult:

1. We construct the frame of the future boulder from a wire mesh with frequent cells.
2. From the inside, we fill the frame with light filler, such as polyethylene, polystyrene foam or something similar.
3. The outside of the wire frame is coated cement mortar. You need to apply layers with a spatula and gradually, as they dry, form a smooth boulder.
4. When such a boulder dries completely, the base of the stone is made. You can immediately form a hollow boulder to make it easier to place on convex manhole covers. A kind of papier-mâché is formed from cardboard. Be sure to use wire mesh as a base. When the mold is dry, it is also coated with liquid cement and dried.
5. To add texture to the stone, you can use a fine fraction of stone chips, such as zeolite.
6. Experiment with pigments - they can easily give the stone a more natural look.
7. After painting, it is recommended to seal the cement with a layer of sealant to interior works on concrete. It will significantly extend the life of your stone.

The artificial stone is ready with your own hands. It looks no worse than one bought in a store and easily performs the same functions.

In the current economic situation, it is not at all necessary to spend a lot of money on decorating septic tanks. All building materials can be used as part of a decorative element. For example, zeolite. Zeolite has good filtering ability and is poured into the filter at the outlet of the septic tank. Surely, if you installed a septic tank, then there is also zeolite left. It can be used as a bedding in an alpine hill or to form a “dry stream” or to give texture to artificial stone.

To decorate septic tank hatches, wooden stumps, old barrels, hand-made stones, grapevine or hazel are suitable, from which you can weave decorative screen or wattle fence.

If you look around, you will see a lot of materials for making decorative ornaments and a huge number of ideas. The main thing is to use them correctly.

On any suburban area you can find details that can hardly be called decoration. Any underground communications, be it water supply, sewerage or drainage systems, must have hatches that go to the surface of the earth.Many site owners do not consider the presence of small hatches a problem. However, massive elements of the sewer system raised above the ground in most cases spoil the appearance of a carefully thought-out landscape design. Fortunately, today quite a wide variety of methods have been invented to disguise hatches protruding above the surface of the earth.The main task is to make sure that access to the hatch is convenient and does not harm the plants planted around it.

Disguise with artificial stones

The very first solution that comes to mind is to disguise the hatch with a boulder or several stones, creating a small stone composition. It is important to remember here that in order to maintain communications, the hatch cover will have to be opened periodically, so the created stone slide will regularly turn into ruins, damaging the plants planted nearby.In addition, moving boulders from their place and then returning them back is quite problematic, especially if the stones are large.

Today, specialized stores offer a wide range of artificial boulders - hollow stones made from fiberglass and epoxy resin. They are lightweight, durable and come in an incredible variety of shapes and colors. Having a low weight (10-13 kg), they can easily be transported from place to place. Stones made of polymer resins can easily withstand low winter temperatures, hot summers and high humidity and will not lose their color even after several years.

Such stones will look great surrounded by a flower garden or rockery with perennial and ground cover plants, sprinkled with pebbles, without complicating access to the septic tank hatch.

If you build an alpine slide near the technical zone and choose a camouflage to match the created mountain landscape, then even a professional will hardly be able to distinguish an artificial stone from a real one.

If you wish to arrange alpine garden You don’t have it on your site, you can simply arrange the area around the septic tank, like a piece of gravel garden, or plant lawn grass around the artificial stone. In the first case, the ground around the hatch must be leveled, geotextiles laid, a stone installed and sprinkled with stone chips, lightly covering the edges. This method of camouflage will create the impression that the stone has been there for a long time.

Disguise with plants

If you decide to plant plants near the hatch from underground communications, it is better to do it on the side where no maintenance work will be carried out.

Unpretentious junipers and small decorative Christmas trees will feel good here (Nidiformis, Barri). They do not grow and have a beautiful round shape.

A good way to disguise the hatch from the septic tank and distract attention from it is to plant tall perennials with lush decorative greenery, such as beautiful and unpretentious astilbes. Even if technical work the leaves will be crushed, the plant will quickly recover and take on its previous appearance.

In addition to astilbe, marsh iris, caustic sedum and point loosestrife are well suited for planting. These perennials are easy to care for and recover well from accidental damage.

It is good to plant a creeping shrub, such as stephanandra, near the septic tank. Thin shoots of the plant will quickly grow and close the hatch cover. When carrying out technical work, it will be enough to carefully move the branches to the side.

Very often, flowerbed covers are included with the septic tank. Without them special effort can be easily converted into decorative flower bed, or lawn. It is enough to fill the soil inside, sow lawn grass or plant unpretentious flowers with a shallow root system.

You can decorate such a lid in the most unexpected way - pour crushed stone, stone chips inside, create a unique composition of plants, cones or bark. It all depends only on your imagination.

Tree camouflage

If the stones still do not fit into your landscape, you can suggest using wooden snags or stumps as camouflage.

Again, in order to save time and effort on searching suitable tree You can purchase artificial stumps. Outwardly, they are very similar to the real thing, if necessary, they can be easily moved from place to place and will last for quite a long time.

Many of them have special platforms and recesses. You can place flower pots in them.

Decorative compositions

Lovers of natural wood products can be advised to go to specialty stores. There's quite a wide range various mills, wells, bridges or chests and other compositions for decorating hatches are presented.

When purchasing such products, give preference to designs that will not impede access to the septic tank or well. In addition, wooden decorative items will deteriorate much faster and require more frequent replacement or repair.

Another good way quickly and easily decorate a manhole cover - lay a special fabric covered with a layer of quartz sand or small stone chips. The edges of the fabric should be lightly sprinkled with earth, and in the center should be placed a sculpture or a flowerpot with flowers, which can be moved if necessary.

Residents country houses They strive to make not only their facades beautiful, but also the surrounding area, decorating their site with greenery, flowers, neat paths, and garden sculptures. However, lovingly created landscaping often spoils the appearance of manholes that cover the entrance to sewer and drainage systems, well caissons and septic tanks.
Decorative covers for wells allow you to solve this problem in your favor.

Why do you need a well cover?

Structures for any purpose, as well as caissons, septic tanks, compost and cesspools, they are closed with lids not only for the safety of a person who may unknowingly or accidentally fall into them.
They perform many more functions, including:

• Protection from foreign objects, debris, melt and rain water;
• Protection from the penetration of sunlight, which causes active growth of bacteria and algae on the walls;
• Insulation, protection from freezing of both the contents of wells and the equipment installed in it. The lid does not release heat and does not allow cold air inside;
• Decorative function. Not mandatory, but highly desirable in private households and in places of recreation or large crowds of people.

For reference. Decorative covers for wells are often installed in parks, on lawns, sidewalks and perform not only an aesthetic function, but also all of the above.

Types of decorative covers

The type and material from which such products are made depend on the type of structure that needs protection and decoration.

Materials

Drinking wells are raised above ground level and are constantly in use, while the hatches of drain wells and septic tanks are usually located directly on the ground, and access to them is rarely necessary, only for inspection, repair or pumping of wastewater.
Hence the difference in the choice of materials for the decorative cover:

• Cast iron products, as in the picture above, are heavy and highly resistant to mechanical and external natural influences. They are installed where the instructions require increased strength of hatches and restriction of unauthorized access - on sidewalks, roadways, etc.
• Polymers are made by contact molding from polyethylene, polyurethane and other polymers, often with the addition polyester resin, fiberglass, quartz sand, granite chips. The weight, strength and price of products depend on the type and quantity of such additives.
  They withstand significant loads, sudden temperature changes, exposure to ultraviolet rays and can be used for both drinking and sewer wells.

• Wooden decorative covers for a well look very aesthetically pleasing, but are not durable and resistant to moisture and other external factors. Therefore, they are used only to decorate decorative and drinking springs, and other structures whose mouth is located above ground level.
  In this case, hard types of wood are used, and finished product treated with varnishes, paints, special impregnations and other protective agents.

Decorative design

Hatches and covers produced by industry can have a variety of shapes and colors. When it comes to hatches, they are rarely different original decor- usually a certain pattern or design is simply extruded on their front side, and they themselves are painted in different colors, which match the color of the lawn, paving slabs and other coatings.

Covers mean products that completely hide the entrance to the well and disguise it as stone boulders, stumps, garden sculptures, flower beds and other elements of landscape design.
Here are some examples:

As you can see, there is no shortage of design choices; you can choose a lid of any type and size. True, they are quite expensive, but if you wish, you can make something similar yourself.

Homemade well covers

What can you make with your own hands? decorative cover? Of the most different materials: wood, metal, concrete, foam and even polyurethane foam and construction waste.
The most accessible and common material is, of course, wood. If we are talking about a water well, then the cover for it is usually part. Less often, it is actually a lid fixed on the sides with an opening hatch.

If we talk about the need to disguise hatches and cesspools located at ground level, then there is much more room for imagination. See what can be made from the already mentioned polyurethane foam.

Here only the castle itself is a finished product, everything else is made by the hands of a master.
In principle, making such a masterpiece is accessible to everyone; for this you need:

• Apply a continuous layer of polyurethane foam to a flat or slightly convex surface (depending on the shape of the hatch). The area covered by it should be larger than the well hatch;
• Place cuttings of boards, pieces of foam plastic, and other available material on the not yet hardened foam;
• Cover this construction debris with another thick layer of foam;
• Continue in the same sequence, gradually narrowing the structure upward and creating the approximate desired shape;

• When finished, leave the product until completely dry, then correct the shape using a stationery knife and sand with sandpaper;

For reference. If you install a lock, you must do this before the foam has dried. But you can do without it by simply making an imitation stone boulder.

• To make the lid more durable and protect it from the harmful effects of the atmosphere, cover it plaster mortar or tile adhesive;
• The finished product remains to be primed and painted to your taste using acrylic facade paint.

Conclusion

Of course, such products are easier to buy, especially if you don’t have the desire, time or ability to make them yourself. But if you want to improve your site, make it unique, interesting, and different from others, then why not try it?
And the video in this article will tell you how to make wooden house for a water well or borehole, which will become not just a decoration, but also a reliable protection for your source from bad weather, and will protect your children and pets from accidentally falling into the shaft.

Septic tank for country house certainly necessary and very useful thing, which significantly makes life easier for residents of areas located far from centralized sewer networks, for example in rural areas, as well as country and cottage settlements. All this is true!

But there is one small nuance: despite the fact that almost all septic tanks from manufacturers are installed underground, at least one inspection hatch, covered with a plastic or metal cover, will necessarily protrude onto the ground surface at their locations, which can ruin appearance plot or disrupt the harmony of the existing landscape design. In order to solve this problem, the hatch or upper protruding part of the septic tank can be covered decorative elements.

Decoration of inspection hatches and septic tanks can be done by installing on them:

• plastic false stones;
• wooden decorative elements;
• removable flower bed covers;
• caps made of polymers;
• figurines of people and animals;
• flower pots;
• antique-style mini-mills, turrets, wells and other, in some cases even creative, elements.

Each of the used decoration options has the right to life if the owners of the site like it and do not introduce dissonance into the concept of landscape design. The only thing that should not be forgotten when choosing a decorative element is its weight: the product must be mobile and therefore not too heavy, otherwise maintenance of the septic tank, in particular opening the hatch, for example, to monitor the level of drains or pump out sewage, will be difficult .

Plastic false stones

Artificial stones-boulders for a hatch or septic tank for a country house have already received very widespread V landscape design for landscaping and adjacent areas. These products, having a hollow structure, are used not only for masking hatches, but also for decorating any elements protruding from the ground: the necks of caissons and wells, building structures etc.

The frame of artificial boulders is most often made from fiberglass, and the outer layer, simulating real stone, is made from a combination of polymer resins with the addition of natural stone chips: jasper, quartz, rocks, granite. Artificial stones can be made in several versions:

• classic style– boulder given size without additional elements;
• glowing stones - the outer surface of the boulder is covered with phosphorescent paint, which gives the product an unusual and original look in the evening and at night;
• stones with decorative elements - various animals, snakes, lizards, turtles, etc. can be installed on the boulder as decoration.

Wooden decor

Wooden decor also enjoys considerable popularity, since many home craftsmen, showing remarkable imagination, express themselves by making such products on their own. It can be anything: wooden wells, deliberately rough barrel lids, stylized mills and even chests.

Flowerbed covers

Flowerbed covers are primarily suitable for those who like to engage in floriculture. In order to make this kind of product, it is enough to put together a low box, its area should be equal to the diameter of the hatch or slightly larger than it, fill the container with soil and plant flowers.

Flowers with a not very massive root system are suitable for this design, for example lobelia, petunia, nasturtium, pelargonium. The box with flowers is installed on the hatch and, if necessary, can be easily removed, without complicating access to the inspection hatch at all.

Polymer caps

Caps made from polymers are another popular type of decor. The design of this kind of product is absolutely similar to false stones - the same hollow mini-dome. But the appearance can be very different: tree stumps, imitation well or wooden lid, garden figures, a playground with fairy-tale characters and much more.