Page 1 of 1

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 10:11 pm
by alexben5
Have trawled through your great pages and don't think I've found the answer to my problem. Apologies if it's there and I've missed it.

We've had "flooding" from our drive (30ft x 30ft area) close to the house for the three years we've lived here every time it rains. Discovered that there was only soakaway drainage so dug from down pipe until we found a collapsed, silted up, rubble filled soakaway approx 12ft from house. Emptied it and realised that it was surrounded by clay so dug..... and dug.... and dug, only to find..... you guessed it - more clay!

Local geological plans show - yes, clay! Deep! The existing hole is approx 4ft square x 4.5ft deep. Needed a pump to get rid of water whilst digging and hoped that we'd find the hole empty next day - 10 days later we think it might have stopped filling and we don't know whether we're looking at the water table or just saturation of the surrounding ground (water level is about 3ft below ground level. We've heard now from the neighbours that the surface water drainage has always been a problem to this property, so much so that they had to put up curb stones to stop the flow from our property to theirs! Neighbour the other side had a similar problem so lay a deep gravel drive. Looks like this soakaway has never worked! No SW mains available to tap into.

Drive slopes down towards the house from the road and we're obviously keen to get a solution before the autumn, otherwise we're going to have to get some carp to put in this bloody hole. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:03 pm
by 84-1093879891
Ghost Koi are supposed to be very attractive, but a couple of fairground goldfish are probably the most likely to survive in such conditions! ;)

Seriously. I think you're fighting a losing battle. I can't see a soakaway working on your site, even if you built a proper one (ie, not a rubble-filled hole), and, if you did manage to build a working soakaway, you'd soon find that all your neighbour's were benefitting from it, rather than you, as you're at the bottom of the slope and so "last in line", if you know what I mean.

Are there any drainage points at all that could be used, even if they are Foul Water?