The Brew Cabin

Hi,

I am about to build a patio in our back garden (House is 3 years old), however I am concerned about drainage.
Due to the fall of the garden (towards the house) the patio will also have a fall towards the house. The patio will start away from the house itself (approximately 70cm) to accommodate the two steps frm the patio doors. I intend to place a gravel pit between the house and the start of the patio to allow for drainage. Is this sufficient?

The patio will be 18m2 with 6m towards the face of the house, although approximately 2m will overlap the end of the house at one side. Up until now we have had no drainage problems in garden, despite the recent heavy rain (I'm in Glasgow!).

Any advice would be appreciated!

Cheers

Dave

I assume the patio is well below dpc due to you saying there is two steps down from the house, the gravel strip will be sufficient to catch the water but it will need to escape somewhere when collected is there a drain nearby that could be tapped into?, if so use this to free the water. If not you may need to consider a linear drainage channel and pipe the water elsewhere.

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm not a big fan of allowing surface water to infiltrate around the foundations of a building, unless there really is no alternative.

As you plan to construct this 'gravel pit', have you checked that the sub-grade is capable of dealing with the water sent into the 'pit'? What you are creating, in effect, is a large soakaway, and so it's essential that you ensure water will actually soakaway, and not just sit there, saturating your foundations and going green.

Thanks for the replies guys. I have decided to build the patio with a fall away from the house. It means a good bit more work, but at least I don't need to go to the gym as much!

Cheers
Dave