Patio drainage - What type of drainage

[drseafish]

I am in the process of laying a L shaped patio around the back left hand side of my house. My back garden is quite large and slopes towards the house. THe property has field at the back which also slopes towards the house. Although the slope is not great its enough that when I dug out the patio area last summer it filled with rainwater on several occasions (wet summer!). The garden has remained quite wet all winter, enough for moss to begin to take over in places. I have seperated the grass from the patio by a small block wall which I will face with stone on the patio side. Should I install a drain on the grass side of the wall or the patio side. I was think of using a lateral patio drain with a grate and connect it to the gully at the back of the house. Is this the right approach or should I do something like installing a french type drain at the back of the garden, at the highest point and drain to a vegetable patch on the right hand side of the garden. The slope runs just left to right, but falls mainly towards the house. Currently the grass level with be 6 inches higher than the patio, but seperated by a wall. Very unsure what to do and very unsure about messing with the drainage of the house, dual system, pvc drains, 1 meter concentrate path surrounding the house. Any advise appreciated.

[Pablo]

If you were to install a linear channel drain (lateral drain) between the paving and the low retainer and connect into the existing system you should be fine. Fall the paving away from the house towards the drain and this would have the added benefit of removing any eccess runoff from the lawn. If the soil isn't draining well then a soakaway probably won't work. Lawn drainage would have to be run into the system or maybe a ditch if you have one.

[drseafish]

Thanks, yes I plan to slope the patio away from the house and thus the lateral drain adjacent to the retaining wall should do the trick. The soil does drain away in a couple of hours. Should I put gravel on the far side of the retaining wall a few inches wide to help with drainage or should I just fill in with top soil and let the grass come up to the wall? I will connect to the gully, but was wondering is it possible to connect to the drain without ripping up the 1 meter path at the back of the house where the gully is? For example could I did under the path to try and reach the drain?

[msh paving]

try to tunnel under the path but i think you will find it very hard to go 1 metre, then you will need to back fill it with tight packed material other wise the path will crack and you will have wasted you time

[seanandruby]

tunnelling, under a pavement, even a short distance of 1 metre is highly dangerous because you have to go under to connect up. you would need room to work so would be too much of a span. by the time you put in a heading it wouldnt be viable.