Lawn drainage ( again!! )

[Andyw_npt]

Hi there
We live in a 3 year old house, this winter our lawn has turned into a swamp!!
Our soil consists of a 6inch layer of topsoil then a 3 to 4 inch layer of grey compacted dust ( similar to breeze block material ) which is followed by compressed clay and stone

When I laid the lawn, i dug two soakaways and laid channels ( containing drilled 4 inch plastic pipe) feeding into the soakaways...
After just finding and reading through your site I now realise the soakaways will not work as the water will just be held!!

I was about to lay some gravel paths and a 2 x 4 meter gravel
patio to break up the lawn and help the drainage but do you think this will help or am I going to have to revamp the drainage and pipe into the drains??

Thanks in advance

Andy

[Tony McC]

I'm not sure if it would help, but it certainly can't aggravate the problem.

Do these soakaways you dug penetrate to the clay/stone layer? Could you sink them deeper?

The "grey dust" is probably mine waste. Lovely stuff - NOT!

[Andyw_npt]

Hi Tony
Thanks for the quick reply!
The soakaways were dug to a depth of about 3ft, the clay/stone was still going strong.
Wish I had found your site 3 years ago, some great info here.

There is a drain that the house drainpipes feed into, Would it be worth running new piping underneath the planned new path/patio and connect into this? Or would that just take away the rainwater from the new paths and not help with the lawn?

The lawn coped with last years rainfall, is it possible that the soakaways have silted up?

Thanks again

andy

[Tony McC]

I suspect they're not actually soakaways, but, as I say a million times a week, without seeing the site, I can't be sure.

Installing additional land drainage conncete dto the SW system goes against the spirit of SUDS but it probably would improve the drainage of the lawn.