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

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.

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

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?)

If you drain the water then it is likely to fill back up again - so it
doesn't seem like an ideal solution to me.

You might gain something in terms of knowledge if you can get some
information about the structure of the land around your property.
Perhaps someone has done surveys in the past which you could get
access to? If you keep on digging you currently have no idea whether
you are inches away from breaking thru the clay soil, or have a couple
of miles to go.

One thing you could try instead of digging with a spade is to use a
post hole borer. That might give you an indication of whether you are
close to the bottom of the clay or not.

Another possible issue that that you may be close to the top of the
water table in the area. If so then no amount of digging is going to
relieve the water arriving in your soakaway.

The only other solution as I see it would be to lay pipes from the
soakaway to a lower area so that the water can run off freely (until
the pipe silts up....).

I guess you don't have a problem with moles in your garden.

Andrew

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.