How do i drain with no drain!
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Stan Dinwater
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2004 2:16 pm
- Location: Preston
Help! Whilist trawling the internet looking for a solution, I came across your site, and I'm hoping someone here can help. I have a small bog which is supposed to be my garden. Reading the drainage part of this site, I can't readily see an answer to the deep standing water at the bottom of my garden. Water regularly collects at the bottom of the garden, but with the heavy rain of late it has reached scary heights. After a few days of dry weather I decided to move the water because it was standing getting deeper and deeper, so I thought moving it to a drain in the street(manually) might give it more chance of draining off. 28 buckets later I reached the bottom! My question is this.I think it is clay soil which is causing the problem but trying to dig an inspection pit through the sludge makes it hard to tell.Your site says in this case a soakaway is pointless,also there is definetly no access to any drains. There are other gardens on all 3 sides, and my house on the fourth, which by the way has no rear access. If I dig and remove all the soil in the problem area, down to the clay level and fill with pea gravel will this be off any use? If it ever dries out I would have to dig a trench about 10 ft long by 2ft wide and down to the clay level. Would this make things better or am I just wasting time and money. PLease save me from anymore 28 bucket journeys ! ! ! !
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84-1089053830
I don't know what you hope to achieve by digging down to the clay - it's not as though groundwater will be able to escape via a layer of clay, so I really can't see the point in doing all that work to create a hole that will simply turn into a crappy pond.
If you have no access to a permeable strata or a drainage sytem, then maybe a wet well pumping chamber is what's required. I know this has come up before, but I can't remeber where or when, but I do remember doing this drawing...
..which aims to show that a wet well works by collecting water until it recahes a 'trigger level' wjhereupon the pump is activated and the chamber is eptied by forcing the water UPHILL to a nearby convenient outfall, which might be another drainage system or a ditch, stream, etc.
This solution is not normally something I would consider for a boggy garden problem. It would be used with, perhaps, flooded sub-floors, or enclosed pavements, as it's a lot of time, effort and expense to deal with a seasonal, non-critical problem, but only you can determine just how important is this issue to you and your family.
If you have no access to a permeable strata or a drainage sytem, then maybe a wet well pumping chamber is what's required. I know this has come up before, but I can't remeber where or when, but I do remember doing this drawing...
..which aims to show that a wet well works by collecting water until it recahes a 'trigger level' wjhereupon the pump is activated and the chamber is eptied by forcing the water UPHILL to a nearby convenient outfall, which might be another drainage system or a ditch, stream, etc.
This solution is not normally something I would consider for a boggy garden problem. It would be used with, perhaps, flooded sub-floors, or enclosed pavements, as it's a lot of time, effort and expense to deal with a seasonal, non-critical problem, but only you can determine just how important is this issue to you and your family.
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TheRobster
- Posts: 83
- Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2004 10:04 pm
- Location: Leeds, UK
Stan,
I was once asked to solve a similar problem that was occuring on a local playing field near to where I work. The field was underlain with many metres of clay and as a result the low-points in the field were constantly saturated with water as it could not drain away, even in summer, which meant that much of the area was unusable by the local residents. There was no provision anywhere for positive drainage from the site.
The way we solved the problem was to landscape the lowest part of the site into a small-ish wetland feature and to plant a whole load of wetland vegetation (in this case phragmites australis, which is just a fancy name for common reed mace).
The reeds have a very high evapotranspiration potential, especially in summer, so much of the water that collected in the wetland evaporated very quickly, leaving most of the playing field dry and useable, at least during the summer months.
I don't know if this is a potential solution for your problem, and it doesn't solve the flooding entirely (especially during autumn/winter) but it might help to alleviate it somewhat. The wetland wouldn't have to be very deep - the one I designed was only 300mm (12 inches) deep at the most, as it had to be safe for kids to be around (there was some concern over the risk of children drowning in the wetland hence the shallow depth).
I was once asked to solve a similar problem that was occuring on a local playing field near to where I work. The field was underlain with many metres of clay and as a result the low-points in the field were constantly saturated with water as it could not drain away, even in summer, which meant that much of the area was unusable by the local residents. There was no provision anywhere for positive drainage from the site.
The way we solved the problem was to landscape the lowest part of the site into a small-ish wetland feature and to plant a whole load of wetland vegetation (in this case phragmites australis, which is just a fancy name for common reed mace).
The reeds have a very high evapotranspiration potential, especially in summer, so much of the water that collected in the wetland evaporated very quickly, leaving most of the playing field dry and useable, at least during the summer months.
I don't know if this is a potential solution for your problem, and it doesn't solve the flooding entirely (especially during autumn/winter) but it might help to alleviate it somewhat. The wetland wouldn't have to be very deep - the one I designed was only 300mm (12 inches) deep at the most, as it had to be safe for kids to be around (there was some concern over the risk of children drowning in the wetland hence the shallow depth).
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jones2004
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:41 pm
- Location: wales
If you can, dig a trial hole in the center of where the water is usually deepest and dig through the clay until you find an area that will drain freely. If you do find a drain free area, dig a number of holes in your garden to that depth and fill with gravel, it may eliviate the problem.
Im not sure if this will work but you may find lining the holes with permeable membrane may stop the soakaways from getting clogged up with soil, etc.
Im not sure if this will work but you may find lining the holes with permeable membrane may stop the soakaways from getting clogged up with soil, etc.
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Stan Dinwater
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2004 2:16 pm
- Location: Preston