Soakaway

Foul and surface water, private drains and public sewers, land drains and soakaways, filter drains and any other ways of getting rid of water.
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mimi
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:38 pm
Location: dover,kent

Post: # 21991Post mimi

Hi. What a great site! Am having a conservatory built and they have dug a soakaway to take account of the rain/surface water...however I'm abit worried.
1. I've read the advice on soakaways and although my new soakaway is 5m from the house it's only actually 3m from where the front edge of the conservatory will be. Is that a problem?
2. The residual patio area adjacent to the new cons. has only a gulley/trap about 4ins square which as far as i know is topping a pipe with drain holes in it and filled with shingle. It doesn't appear to drain to a soakaway so some sort of SW drainage is required to prevent flooding etc.The conservatory company is not currently involved in this bit but the guys building the conservatory say if it were them they would dig another soakaway but this would be just around this 'trap' and could be much smaller. however it would be really near the house (about only 2.5m away) when i queried this they said 'well you're only making your existing gulley bigger'.
another garden landscaper has suggested running the trap into the mains sewer but i'm not sure if this is allowed. How would anyone know anyway? i would really appreciate some advice and apologise for the length of this post.
Thanks very much. looking forward to hearing from you.

seanandruby
Site Admin
Posts: 4713
Joined: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:01 am
Location: eastbourne

Post: # 22002Post seanandruby

i think you will be OK with 3m. is your patio falling away from the house to the garden?hopefully they have put the pipe in on a gradient would of liked to see a pipe without holes away from the gully, as silting up could be a problem. it is hard to visualise without seeing though, so maybe a picture. its not the done thing to drain into the foul.
sean

Tony McC
Site Admin
Posts: 8346
Joined: Mon Jul 05, 2004 7:27 pm
Location: Warrington, People's Republic of South Lancashire
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Post: # 22011Post Tony McC

Conservatories tend to have shallow foundations and so the risk from the proximity of the soakaway is much reduced. The reason soakaways are supposed to be a minimum 5 metres from any building is to prevent wash-out or water damage to the foundations, but with typical conservatory foundations, 3 metres might just be OK.

As for the patio drainage, if it can't be directed to the existiong soakaway, then I'd opt for a new one, ideally a minimum 5 metres from the house and minimum 5m from the other soakaway.
Site Agent - Pavingexpert

mimi
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:38 pm
Location: dover,kent

Post: # 22120Post mimi

Thanks very much for your replies.

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