The Brew Cabin

Hi Tony,
Just stumbled across this site during one of my many "busy" nightshifts....looks really good and full of great advice, good job!!!
So I'm sure you have probably answered similar questions a thousand times.....after the recent heavy rains I noticed today (as I was leaving for work actually) that I appear to have obtained a small swimming pool in my front garden. As a background the house is on just over 0.5 acre of land, has a septic tank in the rear which is piped to the percolation area at the front and as far as I can see there is another drain for the gutters etc running to the back of the house and draining into the field beyond, the road at the front of the house is higher than the property. The whole front garden is very wet, getting pretty close to becoming swampy right now and there is a large pool appearing in the top corner of it near to the entrance to the road. I'm guess that the surface water from the road is draining off into the garden and collecting at this point which appears to be the lowest part of the garden.
What would be the best way to correct this? Could it be a problem with the percolation from the septic tank or the surface water from the road or a combination of both. We've only recently (well in the last year) moved into the house, we had the septic tank emptied recently and the guy who did that most pleasant job said from what he could see the percolation looked to be fine. From reading through your website French Drains seem to be popular, if I was to use this method would it have any affect on the percolation area (it is possible to see the trenches where the pipework for the percolation is run in the garden as there are slight depressions in the grass). Is there any other thing that could work? The lowest part of the garden (where the water is collecting) is also right against the garden wall separating the property from the road. The front garden is approx 70-80 feet long so there is plenty of room to install some sort of drainage system (I believe they should be 5m from the property?).
That's about it, sorry for the long message, hope it is readable after all it is 5:30am at the minute and having been up for 20hours now with another 5 to go I'm may have started to ramble on a bit!!!!

Thanks for any advice you can give, once again great site, keep up the good work!!!!

I don't think just now is a good time to judge how well your land drains. We've been through an exceptionally wet spell and there is a lot of standing water around the country. Just because there is a previously unknown pond in your garden does not mean that you need to install a whole load of land drainage - you need to leave it be for 36-48 hours and then see how it is.

Given that you already have a leach field in situ for the septic system, this would naturally act as a land drain system in times of heavy rain, and so it's obvious that the ground simply cannot absorb the surface water as fast as it's being emptied from the heavens.

Installing more perforated pipe will not increase the absorption potential of the ground: it will slightly increase the holding capacity of the system, and it might accelerate the eventual disappearance of standing water to a small degree, but you are looking at a lot of work and considerable expense for very little return.

If surface water is entering your property from the roadway, then that should be addressed. If it's a public road, then your local authority is obliged to implement some form of drainage strategy that will prevent the surface water washing onto your land. This might be a simpe linear drain or a channel - I can't say what would be best without seeing the site.

But overall, all I can say to you, as I'm repeating in the 3 dozen emails I've already had on the same subject (and which I get around this time every year)....WAIT. Give it time. It will take a day or two for the ground to absorb all this water, but, it's more than likely that it will cope without any intervention from yourself. :)

Pardon my intruding here, but you say "If it's a public road, then your local authority is obliged to implement some form of drainage strategy that will prevent the surface water washing onto your land." Can you elaborate on what you mean by a public road? Can this be a provately owned road used as a public highway, or does it have to be an adopted road? You can guess what's coming next.......

It has to be an adopted highway, adopted in the sense that the LA accepts responsibility for maintenance, which would (and does) include the responsibuility to ensure that it does not drain onto alnd which isn't theirs.

Thanks for the reply Tony, I'm sure your probably getting fed up answering the same question so many times!!
The road is a public road controlled by the LA, and from what I can see there is no drainage on it other than into my garden, there is a ditch on the other side of the road but nothing on the side I'm living on. I'll also give the local authority a call and see what they have to say about it - I'm in Ireland btw.
I'll leave for a while and see how it does then, quite handy really seeings as I'm working nights till Sunday morning......
Thanks again for the advice.

I'm pretty sure the law works the same way in Ireland. I remember a case a few years back in Co Clare where what passed as the local 'main road' was all draining onto the driveway of a small cottage, and swamping the leach field for the household septic system.

Clare CC sent some lads out from Ennis to put in a length of kerb, a channel and a gully that diverted the water to god knows where. The couple in the cottage were happy enough, however, a sthere drive no longer flooded, they didn't have to wear the wellies all year round, and the septic system is still going strong. :)