Suds - Alternatives to suds???

[Frustratedselfbuilder]

Can anyone get me off this roundabout????
Here's a summary;

Planning granted for new replacement house & garage, SUDS a condition.

New house sits towards the front of a sloping plot, 5m back from the plot boundary/public highway. No public footpath & no grass verge to speak of.
Plot approx 1/3 acre, sloping appx 3.5m (upwards) front to back. On clay to a depth of 9m (boreholes done)

Perc tests done & failed - miserably!

Existing cottage sits in middle of plot, rainwater seems to be collecting in soakaways, which judging by the smells are acting as sumps!
Existing cottage on septic tank. Garden very smelly. Will be connecting new house to foul mains in village.

Architects suggest ponds/swales (as soakaway/s not feasible) but B.Regs & Inspector says they're not to be sited closer than 5m to the house or road. And cant be sited uphill (behind) new house.

Architect suggests rainwater harvesting, great but.....
- big hole, high water table, clay ground, civil engineering feat (reinforced concrete lining to prevent tank being 'pushed' out of the ground by clay/water table!).
- and where does overflow go if soakaway not feasible ? Architect suggests pumping overflow uphill and into the garden well. Garden well sits at highest point of rear garden behind new house and water level in the well is approx 12" below ground level. So not feasible.

B.Inspector says - only one option left - connect to village sewer system.

Explained it all to sewage undertaker - who said "no" you cant connect to our system. Its for foul only. Everyone else in the village must use soakaways, so just construct a bigger soakaway.

B.Control said - no soakaway to be closer than 5m of the new house, nor located in the higher ground at the rear of new house. And soakaway wont. (soakaway)

Utility Company knows all this!

Planning & Highways are thinking about removing the SUDS condition. But this doesnt solve the problem.

Only one option left?......
Construct an ineffective soakaway at the lowest point of the front garden, about 3m away from the house & 2m from the highway, which wont drain and which will overflow into the village road and then down the road into the stream at the bottom of the village! (Which floods on a regular basis.) Problem solved??

Any other ideas?

[Dave_L]

Bloody hell.........what a situation!

I can't see much else you can do apart from your last sentence!

Pumping uphill to the well is a no-no

[flowjoe]

Are there any highway drains that a treatment plant and pumped storm system can discharge into, chances are the highway drain runs to the stream.

[GB_Groundworks]

why not pump to the well? 12" is nothing for the modern lift pumps,

what did they hit past 9m? bed rock?

install vertical soakaways?

im with flowjoe harvest then pump if there is a foul system must be a surface water as well for highways drainage or its combined, make a friend of your local waste water inspector for the utility company

[seanandruby]

Move house, or build an ark

[Tony McC]

According to the comedy legislation for front driveways, a soakaway (or any size) is permitted to have an overflow that connects to a SW system as part of the old permitted rights.

When the legislation was published, a certain company posited a soakaway constructed from an empty can of cola, with an overflow piped to the SW system. The lawyers and the Govt. department responsible for the legislation couldn't find a legal fault with the hypothesis. Under their appallingly worded statutory instrument, the requirements would be met by such a stupid construction, and so it would have to be deemed legal. This is what happens when you take construction advice from a bunch of gardeners.

So: it's worth considering whether a single soakaway cell could be used and then allowed to overflow to the SW?

This a genuine job I project managed last year and had accepted by Building Control....

[Dave_L]

Ha! Thats EXACTLY what we've done - one Wavin blue crate then into the SW system! Always felt a bit naughty doing so but we knew it would work - and no water would be seen to flow down the SW system if someone in 'authority' did a test!

[Frustratedselfbuilder]

Thanks for your responses...

Harvesting is something we'd quite like to do. We could excavate for a tank and line it with reinforced concrete to prevent displacement of tank (a seriously expensive option!), but - given the size of excavation necessary, the only possible location is behind the house - in higher ground. And then, in order for rainwater to flow into tank the invert level would then need to be at a depth of ????m = even bigger excavation/massive quantity of reinforced concrete!

Pumping into the well (def not a option) - the land rises 2+m from GF level of the new house to the rim of the well and the water in the well is only 12" below ground level. (Well is 3+m deep). So rainwater would need to be contained (see tank problem above), then pumped a rise of at least 2m over a distance in excess of 40m. (Q: Do garden wells ever overflow!?)

Vertical soakaway? We already have one! Its called a well.

Seriously though - I did think about a vertical solution, but concluded it would have to be considerably more than 9m deep for any hope of water soaking away. Our borehole didnt go beyond 9m. But knowing our luck, we would hit an acquifer & end up with a 2nd well!

There are no combined drain runs in the village. Just foul sewer and seperate highways drainage. Highways might be a possibility.

Tony McC seems to have a solution. Thank you.

The driveway is not so much of an issue as it is sited at the back of the plot, some distance from the house, on higher ground and surface water can discharge into surrounding planting areas or via a coke can/single crate if necessary!
Rainwater from the house is the bigger issue. But we will try to gain consent from Highways for discharge/overflow into their system (which yes, probably does go into the village stream) via a one crate 'system'. Conveniently, there is a highways gulley at the lower front edge of our plot.
And then - we will have to overcome the 2nd problem - will B.Control be happy for us to locate a 'soakaway' in front of the new house - i.e. closer than 5m to the house and closer than 5m to the highway.

Did I mention landscape conditions?? Trees, hedges & RPA's?? Replacement planting of trees etc.. Hummm, now then, where can we dig for a soakaway (that wont) or excavate a gigantic concrete lined hole?

And whose idea was it in the first place to buy this lovely plot and build a new house?!

I appreciate your input/thoughts/experiences and will keep you posted of the eventual solution! (It might be a while though!)