Advice on drainage please

[Dan The Van]

I am part way through digging out my front lawn, in preparation for off street parking. The problem I have relates to how to drain the surface water. I live in a terraced house, with clay soil, and the front area is approx 6m wide and 8m long.

The garden slopes down towards the house, the bottom of the front door being below pavement level. The plan so far is to slope the drive down towards the house and the last 1m - 2m slope up towards the house. Where the slopes meet I plan to install a linear drain running left to right to shift the water, which is where the problem lies, what to flow it in to. If I dig a trench both sides of the garden, from pavement to house, and fill it with hardcore, and lay a perforatted plastic pipe towards the top of the trench and slope it away from the house, and flow the linear drain in to them, do you reckon this would work?? My theory is that the water will drain through the hardcore and the drop on the pipe will allow water to flow away from the house.

If this is OK, then how deep/wide should the trench be and what would be the best material to put in the trench. If I am on to a looser then let me know.

I appreciate your comments.

Dan. ???

[Tony McC]

What you're proposing is a glorified soakaway, and the efficiency of a soakaway depends on the ground in which it lies.

Have a read of this page and, while you're on the main website, have a gander at the SUDS pages as well.