Hi all,
So I've been having some problems with a soak away in the back garden. It's where all my guttering empties into. It has been filling up very easily and not really been draining or doing so at a very slow pace.
My house is on a hill, so when you step into the garden there is a strip of patio then steps up to the garden. The garden itself slopes up away from the house.
On the patio strip there is a drainage point for a soak away (I think, may be a normal drain to mains not sure). Also I live in South London so have clay soil.
Now my thoughts are if the garden is higher than the drainage point for the soak away, it would make sense to have the pipe start heading for the soak away right away so not such a deep hole would need to be dug for the soak away.
However upon starting to try and clear this soak away we've gone down at least a meter, probably more. It started of just clearing the usual silt/mud out but now we've reached the point where we are using a long crow bar to break up chalk and then having my GF (skinny arms) to scoop it out with a spoon.
I've googled chalk blocking soak aways/drains and got nothing. The only thing I can think of is that it is a bore hole soak away and the last owner had it installed thinking that it transported water through the impermeable clay layer and into the chalk layer.
Now any blockage to the chalk is removed (all the silt) will it function properly. Or is having a meter and a half long tube going into chalk not adequate drainage for getting rid of rain water?
Thanks for any replies! I am confused!
So I've been having some problems with a soak away in the back garden. It's where all my guttering empties into. It has been filling up very easily and not really been draining or doing so at a very slow pace.
My house is on a hill, so when you step into the garden there is a strip of patio then steps up to the garden. The garden itself slopes up away from the house.
On the patio strip there is a drainage point for a soak away (I think, may be a normal drain to mains not sure). Also I live in South London so have clay soil.
Now my thoughts are if the garden is higher than the drainage point for the soak away, it would make sense to have the pipe start heading for the soak away right away so not such a deep hole would need to be dug for the soak away.
However upon starting to try and clear this soak away we've gone down at least a meter, probably more. It started of just clearing the usual silt/mud out but now we've reached the point where we are using a long crow bar to break up chalk and then having my GF (skinny arms) to scoop it out with a spoon.
I've googled chalk blocking soak aways/drains and got nothing. The only thing I can think of is that it is a bore hole soak away and the last owner had it installed thinking that it transported water through the impermeable clay layer and into the chalk layer.
Now any blockage to the chalk is removed (all the silt) will it function properly. Or is having a meter and a half long tube going into chalk not adequate drainage for getting rid of rain water?
Thanks for any replies! I am confused!
