The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2014 2:04 pm**

Hi
I'm just about to get a new front drive laid in block paving. My garden falls towards the road and to the side of the gaden which has the drive on. To level the driveway we have had about 30 tonnes of soil excavated and I had planned to excavate a soakaway to drain the new hard standing.
Unfortunately the excavation has removed any topsoil and revealed a solid layer of clay below. Even the puddles in the digger tracks have not soaked away after a week so. There is clearly no option of a soakaway. Permeable paving is also a no go - the water might permeate through the blocks but then it will just be sat under the paving. The driveway is bordered on the downslope side by next doors wall so there is nowhere for the water to flow out sideways.
I cannot even drain the water into my drains, because the drains run across the back garden and are actually higher than the lowest point of the drive.

Any suggestions or should I just let the runoff run onto the road like everyone else on the street?

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2014 2:55 pm**

no!
do it right
a line of linear drainage and a small soakaway might cost a few quid but it shows willing to do it right

we are on clay here in luton but we still dig soakaways, at least it can take the storm surge
cheers LLL

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2014 4:52 pm**

So the sticky thread at the top of this forum saying

Soakaways in clay soil, ...they don't work

is rubbish then?

I have absolutely no need for an underground pond, and if the puddles do not go down by even half an inch over the course of a week then that's exactly what I would be creating.

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2014 4:55 pm**

Read the soakaway page the gaffer has written. You will need to dig a test hole and see if the water drains

Posted: **Sat Feb 08, 2014 6:30 pm**

That was my intention - before we scooped the soil away and found we had already reached the clay layer. However it now seems entirely pointless. From when we had an extension built last year I know that the clay layer is a couple of feet thick, then there is a thin layer of mudstone, then more clay.

If I do a hole test and find the water doesn't drain then what are my options?

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 12:58 am**

if you dig a soakaway even if it doesnt work it complies with the law
its what separates the bodgers from the pros
LLL

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 9:41 am**

Okay
Well, if anyone else has any suggestions other than spend a few hundred pounds on a soakaway that at best wont work and at worst will create an underground bog below my drive then I'd be happy to hear them.

I'll let you decide whether the bodge is to potentially destabilise to soil below the new drive with a soakaway that will be permanently full and hence have all the water running into the drains anyway or not build a soakaway, not risk damaging the driveway and have almost the exact same amount of water flow into the drains.

I had hoped that on a specialist forum like this that someone would be able to give me a well considered solution, rather than simply blindly follow the regulations.

Thanks for the help

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 10:31 am**

prDIY wrote:I had hoped that on a specialist forum like this that someone would be able to give me a well considered solution, rather than simply blindly follow the regulations.

Well that will certainly encourage the 'specialists' we have in The Brew Cabin to help you out!

As 'specialists' none of us can publicly advise you to break the law or contravene the Building Regs. We are also disadvantaged by the fact that we can't see the site so we can't properly weigh-up all of the alternatives.

Soakaways in heavy clay do not work. In some clays, a big enough soakaway, given sufficient time, will sort-of work, but as LLL tried to helpfully tell you, unless you've done a trial hole, you don't know what you're dealing with.

Assuming a soakaway is a non-starter, and given there is no other possible outfall, then it may be that you will need a sump+pump solution to send the collected water back up the hill to the main sw sewer.

If you'd engendered a little more goodwill, you might have persuaded one of the Brew Cabin Irregulars local to you to take a quick look and suggest what might work best. Maybe, if you speak nicely to them, a local contractor might take a look with a view to winning some or all of the work.

But castigating the contributors to any 'specialist' discussion forum, the very people who give their invaluable time and decades of expertise freely and willingly, is not the best way to get the help you need.

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 1:27 pm**

Hello Tony
Thankyou for the post. That is the information I really needed. I.e, what to do when a soakaway is no use. What I meant from my last comment was really that I had hoped to not be treated like an idiot. I am certain that if any of you came to the site it would be immediately clear that a soakaway wasn't an option. In some places it is under 3 inches of water. I had hoped that people would take me on my word for that fact, rather than just quote rules at me that I already knew. At no point did I say that the people here were not experts in their field, in fact quite the opposite. What I am after is the kind of advice that is usually only available on an expert forum like this, i.e. What to do when it doesn't seem to make sense to blindly follow the regs.

However, I just had a google to check how to go about doing a test hole and found this site http://www.eden.gov.uk/plannin....uidance which states that a soakaway cannot go within 5m of a building or road. This in itself rules out a soakaway as my front garden is only 8 m from house to road.

So does this mean I need a pumped system. Seems remarkably ott for a home driveway, but if that is what is needed then so be it.

Thanks again Tony

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 1:51 pm**

Slightly off topic, but what do people do when linear drains/soakaways are required to comply with SUDS on say a front of property new driveway but there is only say 4.5 metres from the front of the property to the boundary. Doesn't this conflict with the old 5 metre rule?

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 2:11 pm**

as the boss says it would be unethical of anyone here to tell you to break the law ,however stupid that law may be

if you had read through all of the suds legislation you would see that the soakaway has only to be suitable

this is not a clear definition

so practically you could run a line of linear channels and have a p trap one end discharging into a bucketful of pea gravel

so most of the water would still run onto the road but legally you would comply

I have heard tale of some contractors tapping into adjacent foul runs but as a *specialist* I couldnt possibly condone that
cheers
LLL

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 6:04 pm**

What an attitude! :rock:

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 7:30 pm**

prDIY wrote:Any suggestions or should I just let the runoff run onto the road like everyone else on the street?

As you've already guessed the pro's on here will not publicly say it's ok to do things wrong.
I'm guessing that most of your so called local professionals do things wrong and let it drain onto the street.

So what should you do?
It's down to your own conscience.
If you've got clay and you believe a soakaway will not work then you could take a chance and let it run onto the street.
What's the worst that can happen if after it's done the council says something?
This is only a guess but perhaps your options could be go for retrospective planning permission or partly redig and install a soakaway.
Both options are something the pro's on here would not want to tarnish their reputation with.
At the end of the day it has to be your choice and then you won't be able to blame anyone in the Brew Cabin if it goes against you.

Why am I saying this? 'cos like you I'm a diyer without a reputation that my livelihood depends on.

I want my drive done but it hasn't been done yet as I'm in clay and so in the same boat as you and so I'm undecided what to do.
One idea is to use a very small soakaway that won't work and allow it to overflow into my rainwater sewer which I believe is a loop hole in the regulations?

Posted: **Sun Feb 09, 2014 10:16 pm**

Hello all
Just to reiterate I wasn't meaning to offend before. Like I said I posted here because I thought that the people here would be more knowledgeable than on the general DIY type sites.

Thanks LLL for your latest post, it sounds like you understood where I was coming from at least with my last post.

So As Tony advised I actually got out the building regs which is what I should have done to start with I guess. So we have requirement H3 (3)

Rainwater shall discharge to one of the following listed in order of priority:
(a) and adequate soakaway or some othe adequate infiltration system; or where that is not reasonably practicable,
(b) a watercourse; or, where that is not reasonably practicable
© a sewer

However H3 3.25 states

Infiltration devices should not be built:
a. within 5 m of a building or road or in areas of unstable land

So that rules out a soakaway as there is nowhere in my garden that isn't within 5 m of a building or road. I actually did one percolation test today in a test hole. I got a Vp of 98. I think I read somewhere that Vp should be less than 100 to install a soakaway, but I don't know where that came from or on what it is based.
Anyway with a soakaway out the next option is a watercourse, which I don't have access to. Which leaves a sewer. To only sewer on my property is foul water and it is uphill from the driveway. Which leaves the storm drains on the road, which I know flow into the beck at the end of the road (beck being northern for a small stream).

My feeling is that in pretty clear conscious that is the only option available to me. I accept that it isn't ideal, but if the council prohibit me from putting a soakaway within 5 m of the road then I have little other alternative.

I don't know what anyone else on the board thinks of that train of thought but I would be interested to hear.

Thanks again

Posted: **Mon Feb 10, 2014 10:20 am**

The whole issue of soakaways and suds is chaotic. There's the comedy driveway legislation of 2008 which was nonsensical from the outset and despite being repeatedly advised to re-think, politicians decided a knee-jerk response to the Tewkesbury flooding of 2007 and the persistent nagging of the RHS in that London was more importatnt than listening to advice from those with actual experience of dealing with the issues.

Then we have the much-delayed (for political convenience reasons) planning guidance on using suds effectively and promoting permeable paving more consistently.

And if you think part H is complicated, you should try working through the advice on designing soakaways for larger schemes! What should be a simple exercise based on area to be drained and soil permeability becomes a tangle of algebra which deters contractors from making the calculations and sees them banging in a couple or three crates as a 'best guess' as to what is actually necessary.

The fact that a soakaway within 5m of a building, wall or highway is considered naughty means that, for millions of front gardens, the government preferred method of drainage is incompatible with the regulations. Then we have the nonsense of cowboy contractors banging in a line of linear channels at the threshold to a driveway which are connected to nothing. They aren't drainage: they are a visual con.

In your situation, it is highly unlikely that the local authority will grant permission to connect to the SW sewer in the highway, even though this would be the most straightforward, logical solution. LAs just don't like giving access to main sewers to individual householders in case it establishes a precedent.

So, the only solution I can imagine, and I'm hindered by not being familiar with your site, is the sump+pump. It's far from ideal, but from what information we have, it seems to be the only practical suggestion.

It might be worth talking to your LA to see if they would consider a sewer connection given your circumstances, but if they do even give you the time of day, expect to be inundated with paperwork and fees; fees for all sorts of nonsense, all sorts of reports, all sorts of impact studies, inspections, assessments and surveys galore. Despite a direct connection being the most sensible solution, the instinctive response of highways depts is to impede your suggestion as much as is possible because.....because....because that's what they do. There's no genuine reason for their intransigence, it's just the way councils tend to be.

If you were developing a couple of houses on your land, they would be compelled to allow connection to the SW sewer in the highway, but because this sort of thing is retrospective, they seem to think they should block it if at all possible by creating insurmountable hurdles.

Bob_A is right that an 'overflowing' soakaway can (and should) have an escape route to the SW system, and it was a massive oversight by the numpties who dreamt up the comedy legsilation, so that is a viable solution for some who have a clay sub-soil, but with your site having the 5m rule problem, I wouldn't even bother with the tokenistic soakaway. If you can't access the main SW sewer, then a sump+pump is the answer, it seems.

The Brew Cabin

Suds advice