Broken bottle gully

[Syd_Rumpo]

Hi folks,

we have a rainwater drain at the front of the house which gathers the rainwater from the driveway and takes it to a soakaway under the lawn.
We had some issues with it backing up so I cleaned out the drain of leaves and mud, and it seems that there is a bottle gully (not sure of the correct terminology) in there.

Something like this
https://www.screwfix.com/p/floplast-d515-underground-bottle-gully-square-lid/6244k

The problem is that it seems to be broken at the base, so even though I clean it out regularly, as well as whatever washes off from the drive, I'd guess soil and stones from the garden are flushed up into it every time it rains.

I know the proper solution is to dig it out and replace, but where it is in the driveway means it'd be a bigger job than we'd want to do at this stage (see picture).

So basically my question is, as a quick fix, is there anything I can put down that to fill up the broken part and stop the soil washing up every time. I'm thinking maybe quick set mortar but I'm a wee bit afraid to do that in case I make things worse!

Am I way off with that idea?

 

[Ian H]

Are you sure there’s a gully there?

I see a few like that where a riser like this:

Has been put there to allow water to pass through the surface. If there definitely is a gully there you could use concrete as long as it doesn’t interfere with the trap and outlet.

 

[Syd_Rumpo]

Hi Ian,

yes there is definitely an outlet pipe which drains down the garden under the lawn (presumably) to a soakaway, and the "bottle" feels jagged at the bottom as if broken rather than rounded like that one.

When the pipe blocked last winter a drain company removed tree roots from the end of the pipe but that doesn't stop the bottle itself filling up.

 

[Ian H]

You could concrete it then but I think you have more problems further down.

Did they cctv it? They could have just removed a couple of roots and left a mass of them in the pipe.