Linear drains

[richardc]

Hi,

Would apprieciate any advice on using the Linear drain system.
My existing (25 years) flag drive is 42ft long and slopes from the pavement down to the garage, 4ft lower.
If I use standard block paving would I be able to use the linear type of drain or would the long term pressure of the blocks moving slightly down the slope be too much for it.
(the 2x2ft flags can only be lifted at the top of the drive as the settling/pressure on the lower ones means they are solidly locked in and 'chipping' slightly)
I currently have a 4" concrete open gulley, effective but not very attractive.

thanks, - and thanks to Tony for such an fantastic site.
Richard

[TheRobster]

Couldn't you surround the linear drain in concrete or some other incompressable material? This is just an idea off the top of my head - no idea if it would be workable in practice or how much concrete surround you would need.

[Tony McC]

The blocks edging the linear drain should be laid onto a concrete bed as this will 'protect' the linear channel from the pressure exerted by the blocks further up the drive.

Also, at 42 olde-worlde feetes long (12.8m) and 4 feetes bverily of fall (1.2m), that gives a gradient of a whopping 1:11. I would very, very strongly recommend you use intermediate restraining courses within the pavement - say one every 4 metres - otherwise there's a real risk of creep.

[richardc]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the info - just wasn't sure how big a concrete retainer was necessary to protect the drain, but doing it as you say means no concrete will be showing at all !
Thanks also for the essential tip on the IRCs - I had not seen/fully apprieciated the use of the IRCs during the many hours looking though your site. I did, via a seach, find your diagrams to Steve Martin from 2004 -sorted!

Still one big problem - 42ft - to meters ? - now was that divide by 12 and then multipy by 39.3 !!

cheers

Richard aka olde yorkshire pudding

[Tony McC]

There's a conversion aid in the top RH corner of each page - RH side of the green navigation bar.

Ye olde feetes to metres: multiply by 0.3048

[chets99]

My garden slopes towards my house. I am having a new patio built. Is it ok to have a linear drain next to the house or should there be a gap between the house and the drain? It needs to be 8 metres long and so I presume that a drain of 50mm depth should be sufficient.

[Tony McC]

There's no problem in having a linear cahnnel drain directly against the house wall.