Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:11 am
Hi
I am having problems with the construction of a soakaway. The background to my situation is I have built an extension to the side of my house, currently the rainwater runoff from this empties into the sewer. The building regs officer has told me that in order to have the extension passed off I must divert this rainwater to a 1m x 1m x 1m soakaway.
My dad’s a builder and incidentally built the extension, so I asked him how I should go about this and he explained the principle and advised me to place it at least 5m form the house and to fill it with hardcore. I went ahead and dug the hole and run pipe work to it and then took photos to show the dimensions of the soakaway and it’s positioning. I phoned the council and explained that I had constructed the soakaway as requested and asked if I could cover the pipe over and fill in the hole without them seeing it as I was worried about my toddler having an accident, the building regs officer said it was fine to cover the pipe but not to fill in the hole with hardcore but to now build a honeycomb brickwork inside the soakaway on a small 4inch foundation of concrete, he said I would then have to use a concrete slab to cover it over and prevent people falling into it.
Since my last conversation with the building regs guy I have done a fair bit of research on the net as to the construction of a soakaway and have found this website invaluable. I’m pretty confident that I understand how to construct the brickwork but I’m stumped as to how to cover the hole. I have trawled the internet for suitable concrete slabs but everyting I’ve found is very heavy duty. I have limited access to the garden (basically you have to go through the house) and I’m concerned that the honeycomb brickwork will not support a great deal of weight. Also my soakaway is 1m by 1m and all the manhole and inspection chamber covers I have seen seem to be rectangular. I don’t want to build the honeycomb wall until I’m sure how I am going to cover it in case I get the dimensions wrong. Please help!!
I am having problems with the construction of a soakaway. The background to my situation is I have built an extension to the side of my house, currently the rainwater runoff from this empties into the sewer. The building regs officer has told me that in order to have the extension passed off I must divert this rainwater to a 1m x 1m x 1m soakaway.
My dad’s a builder and incidentally built the extension, so I asked him how I should go about this and he explained the principle and advised me to place it at least 5m form the house and to fill it with hardcore. I went ahead and dug the hole and run pipe work to it and then took photos to show the dimensions of the soakaway and it’s positioning. I phoned the council and explained that I had constructed the soakaway as requested and asked if I could cover the pipe over and fill in the hole without them seeing it as I was worried about my toddler having an accident, the building regs officer said it was fine to cover the pipe but not to fill in the hole with hardcore but to now build a honeycomb brickwork inside the soakaway on a small 4inch foundation of concrete, he said I would then have to use a concrete slab to cover it over and prevent people falling into it.
Since my last conversation with the building regs guy I have done a fair bit of research on the net as to the construction of a soakaway and have found this website invaluable. I’m pretty confident that I understand how to construct the brickwork but I’m stumped as to how to cover the hole. I have trawled the internet for suitable concrete slabs but everyting I’ve found is very heavy duty. I have limited access to the garden (basically you have to go through the house) and I’m concerned that the honeycomb brickwork will not support a great deal of weight. Also my soakaway is 1m by 1m and all the manhole and inspection chamber covers I have seen seem to be rectangular. I don’t want to build the honeycomb wall until I’m sure how I am going to cover it in case I get the dimensions wrong. Please help!!