Patio area collects rainwater....can I....

aliasojo

.......literally drill a hole through the middle of a slab to let the water drain away?

We have an area of 'utility paving'...basic 3' x 2' builders bog standard slabs. There's a section of maybe 9 slabs that lie very slightly basin shaped and the rainwater tends to puddle there.

I can't face the thought of lifting and re-laying them and as I'm thinking of laying decking over the top, I wondered if I could just deal with the excess water by drilling a hole?

Any suggestions?

If I did lift them and got someone in to lift and re-lay 25 x 3' by 2' slabs......anyone any idea of roughly how much it would cost me?

TIA

Transactionumber

yep drill a hole thats what I did with my patio pool (of course drill it in the grouting bit btw)cheers leachy!!

wobbley

Why not just scrape or chisel away some of the mortar between the joints near where the water is deepest?

Debt_Free_Chick

Depends on the subsoil. If you have heavy clay, then drilling a hole is unlikely to have any longlasting effect - you would have to dig up the patio and lay soakaways.

Any other soil and a deeply drilled hole will have some effect, but it's hardly an ideal solution. Either the patio should drain away from the house and off onto the surrounding garden/land or .... soakaways.

aliasojo

The patio area isn't beside the house as such, it's at the other end of the garden and even then the patio slope is angled in the opposite direction, so the water doesn't pose a problem to the house thankfully.

We do have clay soil but it's not a problem usually and we have no puddle areas elsewhere to worry about which suggests the existing drainage through the earth is adequate? The rest of the slabbed area is fine and I really don't want to have to go to a lot of effort and upheaval for such a small area which is why I wondered if it was feasible to create a 'plughole'.

Thanks everyone for replies. :beer:

Debt_Free_Chick

I think drilling a hole will be fine (but not ideal). There is a danger that, in the winter, the water in the drainage hole will freeze and crack the base of the patio. Over time, the slabs may crack. However, this is unlikely to happen suddenly and more likely to creep over a period of years .. by which time, you might have moved

At the risk of stating the obvious, it was a slightly lazy job to build a patio for surface water to collect in one place and then not provide any drainage for it! Still it's done and you are obviously looking for a reasonably easy fix that doesn't involve rebuilding the patio.

Go for the drill - you'll need to drill as deeply as possibly, but understand that it's not the ideal permanent fix. Should last you for a good few years though

aliasojo

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

At the risk of stating the obvious, it was a slightly lazy job to build a patio for surface water to collect in one place and then not provide any drainage for it! Still it's done and you are obviously looking for a reasonably easy fix that doesn't involve rebuilding the patio.

It was actually fine when done and for long enough afterwards. We had 8' high leylandii (sp?) right the way round the edge of the garden which seem to have caused some movement in the earth and which we think have caused a small area to sink slightly.

We also had a Rowan tree there too and the roots have lifted the edge slabs a little.

All trees have now been dispatched to tree heaven.

And yes........moving is a future certainty.

Jay-Jay_4

If it's any consolation.....

My husband did our patio last year, lovely pale sandstone type slabs they were, cost us a fleepin fortune and I have not only a large natural rainwater lake in the middle of said patio..... but the overflow from the kitchen sink, dishwasher and washing machine also magically collects there too providing a super slippy slime patch 'which' combined with the moss that falls off our roof........ makes for a lovely view from my kitchen window as well as a novel place for our children to fall and injure themselves. :cool: :rolleyes:


If you want to make use of my husband's extensive DIY skills I can send him by Parcelforce and have him with you by tomorrow for a small fee. Tell me who to make the cheque payable to and please note, no returns.

aliasojo

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I can only sympathise Jay-Jay. Why do you think I have had to get involved so heavily in DIY? Yip.....cos all the nice blokes I ever met were crap at it, as is my OH now.

Thank you for your kind offer.........but shove it! :rotfl:

Jay-Jay_4

the_deerstalker wrote:

shove it!

There's gratitude for ya :rolleyes:

aliasojo

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: