Water runoff issues on driveway?

blackstar

Hi all

Hoping to get a pemiable tarmac driveway installed and remove the current faulty monoblock driveway.

However it's all clay under the driveway so a soak-a-way won't work and the council won't allow the driveway to have a fall so that any rain water that doesn't go through the permeable tarmac will drain onto the public footpath. 

So what am I suppose to do? Any other options? 

blackstar

I spoke again with a guy who gave me a quote and he said this below and would like others thoughts on this below. Also what would you all consider a reasonable quote for this job?

"We could run a pipe in to the down pipe at your neighbours and connect the channel drain outlet to this as this will be the only drain that can take the water from what I could see on site.

Putting a soak-away under the driveway would be my last resort on my view I think channel drain and permeable tarmac would be the best option and I would be more confident on this working 100% as we give you a full guarantee If we get a connection to main drain "

twopenny

How does your neighbour feel about this?

Don't you have a downpipe at the front of your house that you could use?

Would the run off if taken from under the drive, be full of clay suspended in the water and potential for it eventually to cause a blockage which they would have to pay for?

Typhoon2000

I wouldn’t involve your neighbour, to avoid potential issues in the future. I would go with a channel drain in front of your drive connected to a soak away at the front. You should be allowed a slight fall with layout so that the water runs into the channel. I am not keen on permeable tarmac/ paving. 

If the soak away gets blocked and drain overflows and water runs out to the road like it’s now you will still be ok as long as you have installed a drain and soak away. Better than having a permeable surface and risk pooling.

Grumpy_chap

The issue with the driveway will be making sure the contractor digs up and prepares a proper sub-base foundation before laying the finish surface.  If that is not done, the new driveway will sink in a similar fashion to the current one.  Part of the challenge for anyone laying this new driveway is the current undulating driveway adjoining an undulating pavement - to avoid step / trip hazard at the interface.

As for the drainage, it will be better if you can avoid anything shared with the neighbour.  Do you have any downpipes at the front within your boundary?  I can't see any in the photo, but maybe to the right of the front door?
Alternatively, is the path to the left shared or just your neighbours?  There seem to be two down pipes there so possibly a chamber that the run off could route to via an acco-drain channel to which the drive would fall.

FreeBear

Typhoon2000 said:

I wouldn’t involve your neighbour, to avoid potential issues in the future. I would go with a channel drain in front of your drive connected to a soak away at the front. You should be allowed a slight fall with layout so that the water runs into the channel. I am not keen on permeable tarmac/ paving. 

If the soak away gets blocked and drain overflows and water runs out to the road like it’s now you will still be ok as long as you have installed a drain and soak away. Better than having a permeable surface and risk pooling.

The problem with a soakaway is Building Regulations - It says that the soakaway should (not must) be at least 5m from a building and 2.5m from the boundary. Neither of these conditions can be met by blackstar. I also suspect that the local water authority would be reluctant to allow any run-off to be diverted in to the existing drain.

GDB2222

If I were the neighbour, I would take a lot of convincing that the run off from the driveway would be clean and would not block my drains. How would that be achieved? 

blackstar

When you say "the soakaway should (not must) be at least 5m from a building and 2.5m from the boundary." 
Is that because you can tell my driveway is too small for this?

Another guy said what he can do is similar to how it is now at the front of the house, make an area about a foot wide all along the front of the house and digg deep and fill it with pebbles and that will be an area where the water will drain into, he said the water would drain before it even met the house. 
But I am worried that as it's clay under the ground the water wouldn't drain away and just keep filling up with water. He said don't worry the water will drain into the ground and won't fill up. What are peoples thoughts on this?

On another note I've been quote about 4k for this job. Apart from one guy who quoted me 10k!!!????

ThisIsWeird

Would you be allowed to simply redo the block drive you currently have, as that's permeable? 
Cleaned up, it'll look as good as new.

FreeBear

blackstar said:

When you say "the soakaway should (not must) be at least 5m from a building and 2.5m from the boundary." 
Is that because you can tell my driveway is too small for this?

Yup, your current drive looks to be too small to achieve the required distances.

At a guess, 5m from the path to house, and maybe 10m wide ?

Nobbie1967

blackstar said:

When you say "the soakaway should (not must) be at least 5m from a building and 2.5m from the boundary." 
Is that because you can tell my driveway is too small for this?

Another guy said what he can do is similar to how it is now at the front of the house, make an area about a foot wide all along the front of the house and digg deep and fill it with pebbles and that will be an area where the water will drain into, he said the water would drain before it even met the house. 
But I am worried that as it's clay under the ground the water wouldn't drain away and just keep filling up with water. He said don't worry the water will drain into the ground and won't fill up. What are peoples thoughts on this?

On another note I've been quote about 4k for this job. Apart from one guy who quoted me 10k!!!????

This seems like a bad idea as all the water from the driveway would be draining down past the foundations and could cause subsidence as it washes clay away.