Garden drainage

[vanessa1]

Hi certain parts of my garden get water logged pimarily by the house as garden slopes towards house. The soakaway does not work because its in clay soil. My neighbour has suggested digging the garden up approx 2 foot putting an entire layer of gravel approx 1 ft deep then new top soil and lawn. We cannot lay french drains as there is nowhere for the water to go any suggestions useful.

[mickg]

have you any downspouts connected to roof gutters at the rear of your property ?

[lutonlagerlout]

what will a layer of gravel do?
the water need to get away, and i see your in south wales ,which means your no strange to rain
are there any foul water drains to the rear of your house,you could possibly have an overflow from a new soakaway going to this
in one extreme instance we had a client with the same problem and he had a borehole drilled down through the clay to chalk but that cost him a lot of money
i would look at ways of re routing the rainwater away from your rear garden
cheers LLL

[vanessa1]

there are no main drains on the property these are all next door, however i believe my rainwater from roof goes there.
there is a small stream that runs beside the property but it often gets quite full. I had a drainage guy come but he said big problem there is no where to run the water to

[seanandruby]

Welcome Vanessa. have you got a rainwater down pipe on your side? If not maybe you could ask your neighbour if you could plumb into his manhole, it would be beneficial to them if you both get standing water.

[vanessa1]

i will ask neighbour, only issue is they have just laid black slate patio and they do not get standing water they have dug down and put in about a foot of gravel then top soil then lawn which is why they are recommending me to to.

thanks for all your advice

vanessa

[seanandruby]

Then your neighbour must of put some sort of pipe work to an outlet. So if you dig down and gravel area, the water should follow his fall.