What kind of expert do i need?

[KeithDonovan]

At the end of our garden is a non-adopted, unpaved, single-track sandy lane that runs between the houses in our road and a parallel road. The ground slopes gently down from the parallel road to ours.

We have a double garage that opens onto the lane, with a concrete hard-standing. At this point, the lane seems to be lower than it is for the adjacent properties, and it is also higher than our hand-standing. As a result, when it rains, we get a lot of muddy water run-off from the lane onto our hard-standing and under the garage doors; typically half the garage will be under water. The adjacent properties do not suffer from any of this.

The water eventually evaporates, leaving behind mud / soil.

The garage stretches across the entire property "frontage" bar about three feet one side (half of a shared concreted path, which also gets muddy) and two feet the other (unpaved). The garden is about 100 feet long. We have an unshared inspection pit beside the house into which soil, waste and rainwater pipes all feed, but I doubt Thames Water would appreciate us channelling lots of water into it, even if we precipitated the soil out first.

A soakaway under the hard-standing would, I feel sure, all too soon become blocked by the fine soil particles in the run-off. A simple concrete hump inside the doors would keep the garage dry, but the hard-standing would still get covered in mud (and the wooden doors would stand in water whenever it rained). A retaining wall of sufficient height between hard-standing and lane would make using the garage impossible without moveable ramps.

I don't expect anyone here to solve this just from my description - although I'd be delighted if anyone could - so my question is: what Yellow Pages category / Google search string would lead me to the type of expert that I need to propose possible solutions to our problem. I can find plenty of people who'll put in drainage for me, but I want someone who'll be able to tell me what my options are, and the up- and down-sides of them.

ATB
Keith

[lutonlagerlout]

well keith,you have 2 choices the way i see it
either raise your garage up by 9 inches,which is uneconomical or install a linear drain leading to a soakaway
btw you can get silt boxs for these drains,or you could even use a back inlet gully so that the water runs through but the sediment is left to be cleaned out ,say quarterly
not really an expert job, just what any decent builder would tell you
look on main site for more details of soakaways and drains
cheers LLL

[Tony McC]

As LLL says, an intercepting linear channel linked to a membrane-wrapped soakaway will deal with the run-off but if you want independent advice, you'll really struggle because most of the people offering advice will be contractors wanting to price the work and so they price what suits them, which is not always the same as what's best for the site. You could get a structural, drainage or design engineer to advise, but you'll need deep pockets.

Best of all is to ask three of four contractors individually and then pool their pronounced wisdom into one sensible, viable option and have them price that.

[KeithDonovan]

Gentlemen, thanks for the advice. Showed the thread to the missus and she said "Do that, then", so I think that counts as an unqualified success!

[lutonlagerlout]

"KERR-CHING" frame him dan another satisfied punter
cheers LLL