Who would be the best person for garden drainage?

sandford6016

Moved into the house in November, and the garden was pretty flooded from rain water, and then snow melt! Been doing quite a bit of research and there is obviously a need for land drains / french drains under the surface to take the water elsewhere. Dug a few holes today and there is water about 2ft down, I'm guessing a high water table. I was going to do all the work myself but as time goes on I just don't think it's worth the risk of getting it wrong and causing further problems.

So, my question is, who would be the best person to get in to look at/quote for the work required? A builder? Landscape gardener? If anyone else has had something similar done then please let me know!

Many thanks

nodwah

Hi, we had a flooded garden at our old house, so we dug drainage into the field behind. Our nasty neighbour shopped us to the council, who made us take the drain out again as you need planning permission - who knew?

May not be the case where you are but I suppose a good landscape gardener will know ( but won't be cheap!)

balloo_2

have you got somewhere you can run the water off too? A soakaway if you can dig a little trench the soakaway pipes have all little holes for the water to soak in and run down the pipe and out somewhere lay them on a bed of chippings and cover with chippings or if you can hire a little digger with a narrow bucket (I think its called a trentching bucket) and are able to get it in to your garden. I am not an expert i am a bear just thinking of ways to help. Another thing is maybe you could run the water into a tank and recycle the water for the garden again when its not flooded and the sun is shining.

elaine241

Hi we run a ground works company and obviously do this sort of thing but on a larger scale usually! My best advice to you is to see if there are any builders who mention groundworks in their advertising.

There is a lot more to it than just putting a land drain in and hoping it will work, it could end up draining other areas in to your already soggy patch! You have to consider where the water is going to go, if it is a spring rising, an already blocked drain, if it is going to go into existing drainage etc. If they put in a drain you have to make sure the levels are right to allow the water to go in the direction you want and not just flow to another area of you garden.

We have just had to clear up a land drain mess in our house put in by someone who had no understanding of drainage. Our poor next door neighbour had a waterfall emptying onto his patio due to the land drain not working!
I dont know if you are in a rural area, As an alternative I have found that often the most reasonable costing "groundworkers" are farmers sons who also undertake some construction, They obviously have to deal with land drains etc in the fields.

Hope this helps Elaine

mattk35

Theres some good info on this site that might help

http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain03.htm

At least it might give you an idea if you get someone round of what there talking about doing.