Darren wrote:
I'm in the process of getting from front garden block-paved, but have
a slight dilema on what to do with the rainwater, ie there's a slight
slope from the road pavement into my garden (roughly 3 degrees).

The distance from the road path to my house front is 6.01m and the
width of the front garden is 5.47m. So the entire area is just under
33 m-sq.

The slope of the proposed new driveway will roughly hit my house front
around 26cm off the horizontal, because of the slight incline.

Is there some formula to work out whether a small soakaway would be
more than adequate? My only concern about the soakaway (after readng a
few sites, ie www.pavingexpert.com) is that I shouldn't be using one
to begin with, due to promixty to the building and fear of saturating
the foundations!

I don't not have any other alternatives other than to just let the
water gather as it's too far from a drain.

Given the dimensions and incline etc would the amount of water
gathering be anything to worry about? Should I just go ahead with a
drive without the soakaway?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.



Depends what soil you have there, amongst other things.

In extremis, let the whole lot drain towards the house, and if the slope
continues behind the house, dig a french drain (perf pipe in a gravel
filled ditch) around the house and exit somewhere downhill, or into the
gutter/drainpipe soakaway system.