kevinspiller wrote:
Thanks to all for their valued advice on building the soak away. I dug
down 4 feet in one afternoon but was still not free of the clay. The
next day it rained and the whole completely filled with water and has
overflowed into the garden. 4 weeks later the whole is still full of
water and shows no signs of percolating. My options as I see them are
to drain the water and carry on digging? (Or are there any other
options?)

However, to do this I need to remove the water already in the hole. I
have dug 4 feet down by approx 6 feet long and 18 inches wide. A
neighbour mentioned using a stirrup pump, but the last time she saw one
was during the air raids!!.

Any suggestions would be most grateful.



Get a mini digger with a ditching bucket and bail it out.

PS I have the same problems, so my soakaway is now a nice pond complete
with fish.


PPS where geographically are you? Here we have to go down a long way to
get through clay to the chalk, and really surface drainage to ditches is
the only sane solution.




N. Thornton Wrote:

Rick Dipper wrote in message
. ..-
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:46:14 +0100, kevinspiller
wrote:
-

My back garden is split between a paved area running from the house
which then meets a lawned area which is surrounded by brickwork. The
paved area runs down to the lawn, although it is not a steep
gradient.
Where the paved areas comes up against the brick work surrounding the
lawn, rain waste collects and doesn't drain away. I have heard that a
"soakaway" might help. If this is true, how deep should I make it,
what
should I fill it with, should I replace the paving afterwards or
leave
it open with the fill I put into it. the width of the paved area is
approx 20 feet.

Regards,

Kevin-

You need a mini digger.

Dig trenches, fill with washed stone, then "land drain", then more
washed stone, then top with soil. You end up with lots of spare soil,
and you need to do lots of digging / shifting.

Rick-

yes, except you wont need the drain pipes, the water trickles through
the stones. And crushed concrete is cheaper. The flow rate is lower
with mixed lump sizes, but flow rate is a non issue in such a situ.
Its a good way to get rid of building rubble.

And you can always do them by hand, if you want to get fit

A soakaway is a big hole filled with stone or rubble. The lawn drains
into it, and the water can slowly soak away over hours or days while
the lawn stays not wet.


NT