What do you do when soakaway doesn't work in clay soil?

Ksw3

travis-powers said:

This is the soak away on the job I’m working at, that at the moment is just taking water from the front of the house, there is the rear and a flat roof to add to this Anglia water are making my clients life hell asking for percolation tests before they will consider letting her connect to drainage system 

That is worrying. I've no energy for a fight! I hope our local water company is more accommodating. If I needed a percolation test who would do that?

The one we had installed is smaller than that I think so perhaps it's the size as well but then our soil is the brightest orangey yellow with clay so maybe even that is a no go. 

I have no idea what to do, I just want rain to go somewhere sensible! 

stuart45

If your bill says you're being charged for taking away your surface water, then they must think it's connected to the mains anyway.

subjecttocontract

* Can you run a pipe to the front boundary and pipe the water into the street ?
* Soakaways in clay soil have to be rather large or they just don't work......they're especially a problem in winter.
* It helps if you are on a slope, even a gentle slope as water will run off your land into the next garden.

Ksw3

subjecttocontract said:

* Can you run a pipe to the front boundary and pipe the water into the street ?
* Soakaways in clay soil have to be rather large or they just don't work......they're especially a problem in winter.
* It helps if you are on a slope, even a gentle slope as water will run off your land into the next garden.

We are terraced so no to the first one and our garden is sloped but don't want to cause  any issues for our neighbours. 

We have already had 2 different trades people out, 1 who didn't recognise that we weren't on a combined system and one who put this small soakaway in. 

I think our neighbours to the right might have surface water drains looking at the report so I don't understand why we don't. 

FreeBear

subjecttocontract said: * Can you run a pipe to the front boundary and pipe the water into the street ?

No. You can not do this.

There are rules & regulations that prevent you from discharging on to the street. This is to limit the amount of water that the storm drains have to deal with and also reduces the risk of localised flooding. Whilst you may see downpipes discharging onto/across pavements, invariably these were fitted before current regulations came in to effect.

OP - An alternative to a soakaway is a rain garden. If you have a large garden and space for what is effectively a gavel filled pit, it could work.

subjecttocontract

I'm trying to understand how this situation happened....
Did you not have a survey or a mortgage valuer visit ?
Was the disconnected guttering not picked up ?
Did the sellers forget to mention on the questionaire about the garden flooding ?
Or did you know all this and buy it anyway ?

Ksw3

The survey said the downpipe was blocked and that the guttering had been disconnected. We assumed that once the downpipe was cleared it would be fine. Its in a weird place and so not easy to clean and the property had been empty for a year.

I know now we should have pushed this point however it was a probate sale and every answer we got back was "I don't know".  They failed to let us know of the flooding thar happened in the house from dodgy plumbing but we were able to fix that ourselves with some research and determination. 

subjecttocontract

Ok well
* You can't stop it raining, 
* You can't pipe it out of the garden.
* You live on a slope but don't want to let it run into the neighbours.
* The soakaway fills up so isn't big enough.

2 options
* Get connected to the surface water drains used by the neighbours. Or
* Dig a much bigger soakaway.