Garden sloping down TOWARDS our house.

tomsidebottom

Our front garden is quite high and slopes down TOWARDS the house.

It's only a small(ish) garden, so would it be worth taking out a load of the soil so it slopes away from the house instead?

My dad suggested an alternative, which is to dig a deep large hole in the centre, fill it with rubble, then cover with top soil. This should act as a kind of drain, allowing me to not have to dig out my entire garden.

We have had problems with damp on the front wall too.

Any suggestions or thoughts would be great.

anotherbaldrick

What is the nature of your subsoil ? clay, chalk, loam, limestone, gravel, sand ?

tomsidebottom

The nature of the subsoil is clay.

Ectophile

I'm a bit puzzled - if the front garden slopes down to the house, and you dig out a load of soil to make it slope the other way, then won't you end up with a huge drop between the road and the edge of your garden?

evoke

I don't think you're allowed to slope your front garden so that rainwater drains to the footpath and road. I had this issue when getting a new driveway built.

The solution for me was to put Aco drains across the front garden, around 1m from the front wall of my house. The Aco drains drained rainwater to a soakaway.

What your dad has suggested is a kind of soakaway. If you have hard-standing at the front wall of your house then you're going to need drainage to stop the water reaching the front wall.

You could mitigate the issue to a large extent by having a decent amount of soil separated by a barrier of some sort from your front wall (e.g. 0.5m of block paving/concrete, etc).

There are considerations on the ratio between hard-standing and soil to ensure that you don't cause a surface flood.

I would go for a soakaway (which can be covered with hard-standing like block paving with an Aco-drain around 0.5m in front of the front wall of the house draining into the soakaway.

Avoriaz

tomsidebottom wrote: »

...We have had problems with damp on the front wall too....

Unless water is actually building up against the wall above the damp course, then normal damp proofing should keep damp out.

I suggest that you get the damp proofing checked and remedied if required before you start shifting tons of soil around.

Otherwise a soakaway and/or Aco drains are worth investigating.

marlot

I solved a similar issue with a rear garden by creating a paved/patio area, with a retaining wall & steps up to the garden. I had to put in a drain at the base of the wall.

Biggles

What is your main problem with it? You mention

We have had problems with damp on the front wall too.

as an afterthought, though that can be dealt with by the methods mentioned above, or a gravel-filled trench in front of the wall maybe. Is there another problem?

tomsidebottom

Hi and thanks everyone.

Rendering has been put over the entire bottom metre of the front wall. Soil was resting at the bottom of this (it is under it now) and damp had made many sections bubble out - separating the two layers.

I can't see the physical damp proof course - should I dig down and search for it?

There are two air bricks on the front but none down the side of the house.

The drive way is tarmac and is quite high - the chemical damp proof course just installed is at floor board level at the side of the house - presumably because it could not have been put any lower. However it is at this same level on the front of the house, which has much lower ground level, so it appears very high and is noticeably above the floor joists - leaving them unprotected. Is this wrong? It seems wrong. Should they have made it lower at the front and linked the front and side with a vertical line?

We're thinking of using a gravel filled trench just in front of the wall, then a grass lawn, then privet.

I just want to make sure my floor joists aren't going to slowly rot over the years.

paddedjohn

I solved a problem like yours by digging a 2 foot wide x 1 1/2 foot deep trench along the back wall of my house and back filling with gravel, a load of potted plants take the edge off it.

tomsidebottom

I went for the option to dig a trench against the wall - about 1 foot wide by 1.5 foot deep. I'm planning on filling it with gravel.

Should I let the bricks completely dry out before putting the gravel in?

Or will they carry on drying out gradually over time anyway?