Massive hole in the garden

[Amober]

We have removed two 1000l underground water tanks from under the rotten decking in our garden. We are now stuck on how to fill them.

My partner wants to break up a pile of bricks we have in the garden and use with sand that was under a brick patio we removed, however this appears to be just builders sand and I'm concerned this could cause a drainage issue.

What would others suggest? It's about 8ft deep and I think we should fill with old gravel and mud that is elsewhere in the garden then a fair amount of soil. I'm concerned about doing something that we will need to undo later

 

[foxhole]

Rubble and sand make excellent drainage, many old soak aways contain nothing else.Smash rubble as small as possible.

 

[pidgeon1]

Rubble and sand make excellent drainage, many old soak aways contain nothing else.Smash rubble as small as possible.

I would go for this idea, maybe some large pieces so it does not compact, you want to keep drainage.

 

[bernardgreen]

We have removed two 1000l underground water tanks

I'm concerned this could cause a drainage issue

Tanks are not normally used in ordinary soak arrays. These tanks maybe are ( or were ) balancing tanks that collect rain water and then allow it to slowly soak away. Used where the ground is impervious such that normal rain fall is too fast for the ground take the water away.

If they were balancing tanks then filling the holes with rubble and/or sand will reduce the capacity and could result in the tanks over flowing before the rain stops.

 

[Amober]

@bernardgreen we have removed the tanks, they were rainwater storage tanks attached to a makeshift well. The previous owner did this all herself, however we found rodents around the area and the decking was rotting. With a toddler, it just wasn't safe so the tanks are gone and we now need to fill the holes and plan to later lay grass

 

[bernardgreen]

attached to a makeshift well

which probably was a slow soak away.

 

[Amober]

@bernardgreen it wasn't a slow soak away, they were plastic water storage tanks. I appreciate your help but I know what they were and what we have removed. They were definitely not slow soak away tanks.

 

[mattylad]

Use the smaller broken bricks not the whole ones.
If you ant the whole ones got rid of, put them on Freegle and someone may want to come take them away to reuse.