surprise under-lawn drainage system

dilby00

Hi all -

I've been in my new house for around a year now and there is a patch towards the bottom of my garden's lawn that becomes sodden in water after even a small downpour.

I was looking to sort this out when my neighbour has informed me that there used to be a stream between my house and the other neighbours that formed the border which the previous owner of my house filled with mounted up earth and planted a bunch of trees in. I was told the previous owner also dug up the entire lawn and ran 'corrugated black pipe everywhere' underground in an effort to stop flooding.

It sounds to me like they have put in some sort of french drain system in but without digging up my lawn I'm unsure if the sodden patch is caused by a blocked/loose pipe in this underground system of pipes, or if they have simply run the pipes to a big soakaway in this area and it's just not enough to take it all away.

Although there's no way of knowing for sure, I was wondering if anyone knew what the most common method was when using this technique - running to a soaraway or running to a drain. If this system is likely to be run to a drain then I can not bother trying to trace it back from the drain and instead maybe aim to increase the soaraway size and/or drain away from that soaraway to a second one or to a drain.

Thanks for the help!

Davesnave

It sounds as if your predecessor was a bit of a plonker! Interfere with water courses at your peril, I'd say.

One other way to look at this would be to consider reinstating the stream, depending on how long ago it was blocked, what's in the place where it ran, and where ran to when leaving your land, etc etc.

It may nor have been a stream in the 'running all the time' sense, but just an effective way to deal with heavy run off during the winter and sudden summer downpours.

brightontraveller

Find the natural course of the stream across your land (start by looking either side of the property, asking neighbors and dig it back out again) If you want to culvert it then I’d leave it open a year to see what the flow is like down it before doing so , You could also see how deep it is either side and allow for flow of the same assuming it doesn’t flood either side if you wanted to culvert it sooner ? There are other methods but digging out is cheapest and normally most effective

Jonesya

Might be worth doing a search on 'rain garden' these are planted areas designed to handle run off, some of the designs with stream like pebble beds actually look quite cool, almost a feature when filled or flowing.