Rainwater drainage

[moxley]

I am paving around a corner of my bungalow. I will need to deal with two rainwater downspouts. Both downspouts just drain into the garden (they have no 'engineered' means of dispersing the rainwater). The garden has quite good slope away from house, so drainage is quite good. There is no easy way of connecting into the drains on the other sides of the bungalow.
I am intending to dig a big hole and fill with small stones. Under each downspout I will install a trap and drain into these pits. These pits will however be under the paving, though drainage is good.
Do I have any better options.

[alan ditchfield]

I would be more inclined to try and connect to a working drain, I know you said this will not be easy but as i understand you are planning to install a soakaway and then pave over the top which in theory is fine but to install the soakaway and pave over the top within a short period of time you may well run the risk of settlement beneath the paving, could you not pipe the water beneath the paving to a less conspicuous, lower area of the garden ?..

[84-1093879891]

I can never understand why folk go and dig a big hole for a soakaway, and then fill it up with stones, rubble, old bricks or any other crap they can find! What a waste of effort!!

The best soakaways are empty - no bricks, no stones, no rubble - just an empty void. Where some form of structural support is required, we now use cellular soakaways, as shown on the Soakaways page, rather than backfill with old rubble. The load-bearing capability of these modules is phenomenal - I know of main roads that have been laid over these cell systems and you'd never know!

Have a look at the page quoted above and see if you can orcder one or two of these modules from your local BM.