On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:04:09 +0100, 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.

Hi,

A submersible mains or 12v bilge pump will pump it out. If you have a
pressure washer try boring a narrow hole at the bottom. A pipe can
then be used to take a soil sample or see if the narrow hole drains
OK. If it fills of it's own accord you've hit the water table!

May be worth doing a test dig in other areas to see how deep the clay
goes. Another possible way to bore a hole in clay is to take some
rigid pipe, cut the end at 45°, twist it in a few turns and then twist
it out and remove the plug in the end, and keep doing that. But it
would be much much easier to hire a post hole borer!

If it's all clay and there is some drainage elsewhere, it may be
better to dig a sump instead and used a double ended siphon to move
the water elsewhere. I can post some ascii to illustrate that if need
be.

cheers,
Pete.