New Reg's re Driveway - Drainage! how do I ?

J

JayHS

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Hi there. :shock:

question, i am planning my driveway, which for now will become a type 1 stone for a temp driveway, ( i plan to block/brick pave the entire front of my house in the future, i.e. next summer ) but looking into the work i am doing, i know i need to do a soakaway for the water run off, so it wont go into any storm drains or waste drains.
my soil is mostly clay, and some stone some 3 foot down!
i have be told that i need to dig a hole,.. place a 40 -50 ltr plastic drum, filled with stones and gravel with holes in it, into the soil, under the driveway planned area, and a drain grill on the lower edge of my property, along the entire opening of my front driveway entrance to collect the fallen rain, and it in turn will flow into the soakaway drum, and gradualy soak away.. into the soil.. and not over burden the councils drains ( as this is the cause of all the flodding we all seem to be getting - so i am told )

is this the case? :?:

is there any spec as to how big a drum i need to fit, i.e. sq area to ratio of rain fall? what kind of drum.. and what colour? lol or is it just a hole.. filled with stone and gravel.. i have lokoed around and not found anyone who knows, at the local planning office.. but it was friday afternoon lol.
I hope i have given all the info i need to get the answers i need..

any advice would be a great help, or of anyone knows of a link to the planning needed for the above matter :D

ps 8)

please no going on about anythng other than a simple answer to my points.. i have been here before.. and many like to have a laugh, and snipe the OP
:?

cheers all for reading this..

looking forward to hearing back
JayHS
 
Yes you seem to have got the idea of whats required, I would question the size of your proposed drum though, although I have no idea of the total area you propose to drain. The fact that you say you have stone present at 3ft is positive though, I would suggest that you dig a hole 5m away from your house say 1m3 and fill with rubble here is a link which may help
http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain08.html
With regards planning I recommend you give your local planning dept a call just to clarify your proposals.
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/genpub/en/1115315235239.html
 
If it turns out to be predominantly clay, at depth, then a soakaway will be useless.

There is no Authority in the country that can sanction the use of soakaways in heavy clay subsoil.
 
Heavy clay here in Kent but the Local council still insist on soakaways. When I asked a BCO why this nonsense is being asked for he suggested they were forced to comply with it due to the local water authority insisting it be done.

So you dig a soakaway 5mtr from your home, a couple of days later its full of water and stays that way for the foreseeable future, crazy.
 
You effectively end up with a grey water well in the driveway or lawn.

We dug a soakaway in Stafford, this was into clay. The hole was left open and without any fill for a number of weeks. After a particularly heavy summer deluge the soakaway hole was filled with water.

The water level dropped about 4" in 5 weeks mainly due to evaporation. Completely useless. :roll:
 
oldman2 said:
Heavy clay here in Kent but the Local council still insist on soakaways. When I asked a BCO why this nonsense is being asked for he suggested they were forced to comply with it due to the local water authority insisting it be done.
Click to expand...

That is rubbish, and demonstrates a clueless BCO and a classic Nuremburg defence of his version of the rules.

If water can not percolate into the ground, then it poses a risk, and if other means are impractical or uneconomic, then the guidance allows for discharge into the drains

Its the same for the OP and planning. If a soakaway wont work, then its no use, and the planners can't insist on one. But other designs may have to be considered

A soakaway is normally a hole 1m cubed and 5m from a building, filled with crushed brick/gravel or suchlike. But it's no good using a plastic drum if it wont cope with the volume of run-off - you end up with a big puddle
 
We are also planning to build off road parking and have a very similar problem. We're in Sheffield and our soil is clay as far as I have dug so a soak away is also impracticle. We asked about using up our 5m2 of non pourous surface to make two tyre tracks in the grass. The Vehicle crossing officer says we can't do this as it would drag mud onto the road. We can't use gravel either as thats also a hazard on the road. So we either pay through the nose for a specialist contractor to lay pourous tarmac/bricks, lay £900 (for 15m2) worth pourous recycled plastic tiles ourselves, run a drain to the back of the house and into the back garden, which is possible, but a pain.

Or we continue to park on the muddy grass verge next to the road.

Does anyone know of a cheap pourous material that can be used?
 
Thanks for all the info and advice..

so say i forget the type of block finsih i was goingto go for.. what other ideas are there?.. i think i need to go n look and see.

i simply dont want to have to be weeding the driveway in the future lol..

any ideas

i will have to ask around to see what type of blocks are about.

and also speak to the local planning dept, and see hwat they can suggest..as in, will i be able to use the block i want, and get around the soak away.. because it may simply a non starter.. to do full stop.

cheers again for the advice

i will keep you posted on what i find out ok
 
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