Hi everyone - apologies if this is a rambling post - I have a few questions about rainwater drainage - any advice is much appreciated.
My property has a number of issues with rainwater drainage - largely because it sits on clay soil, and has a number of inadequate soak-aways in too small an area. This has created three problems which need solving for:
1) Half of the back garden (10x8 feet) is paved, with decking over the paving (it was originally ALL paved, but we ripped up and turfed half of it). The drainage for the paved area consists of a channel drain that runs along where the paving meets the house - however this just runs to a soak-away that sits under the turfed area of the garden (10x10 postage stamp of grass). It sits about 1m (or less) from the property wall.
2) Behind the garden there is a large single garage (20x9 feet) - the rainwater which falls on this is channelled to the same soak-away in the back garden.
3) Next to the garage, there is a concrete hard-standing roughly the same size as the garage. The property next door (uphill) has an adjacent hard-standing of their own - and the only provision for draining for the whole area (mine and theirs) is a soak-away on my property that drains to...you've guessed it by now - the same tiny soak-away in my little garden.
As you can imagine, with all that area draining to the same place, and with clay soil, the back garden very quickly becomes a pond, typically getting 1-2 inches under water before it reaches a level where it can run downhill (into other next-door's garden!).
Now I know that there is a stormwater drain that runs under my garden, and I was wondering how I go about getting permission to connect to this in order to prevent the persistent garden flooding that I see - do I just approach the water company? And how likely are they to agree? Do they have a choice? The only alternative at the moment is to lay channels that send the water downhill (towards my neighbour - who already has problems of her own)
Finally - I have the option this year to move the garage (it's only a pre-fab job) to one side - effectively covering my half of the hard-standing. Before doing so, I'd like to lay a new base in order to slightly elevate the floor of the garage (to prevent it filling up in times of rain), but this would then leave my neighbours with their hard-standing having no drainage at all - what are my obligations here? Am I obliged to provision for their surface-water drainage as the current solution (such as it is) sends it over to my property?
My property has a number of issues with rainwater drainage - largely because it sits on clay soil, and has a number of inadequate soak-aways in too small an area. This has created three problems which need solving for:
1) Half of the back garden (10x8 feet) is paved, with decking over the paving (it was originally ALL paved, but we ripped up and turfed half of it). The drainage for the paved area consists of a channel drain that runs along where the paving meets the house - however this just runs to a soak-away that sits under the turfed area of the garden (10x10 postage stamp of grass). It sits about 1m (or less) from the property wall.
2) Behind the garden there is a large single garage (20x9 feet) - the rainwater which falls on this is channelled to the same soak-away in the back garden.
3) Next to the garage, there is a concrete hard-standing roughly the same size as the garage. The property next door (uphill) has an adjacent hard-standing of their own - and the only provision for draining for the whole area (mine and theirs) is a soak-away on my property that drains to...you've guessed it by now - the same tiny soak-away in my little garden.
As you can imagine, with all that area draining to the same place, and with clay soil, the back garden very quickly becomes a pond, typically getting 1-2 inches under water before it reaches a level where it can run downhill (into other next-door's garden!).
Now I know that there is a stormwater drain that runs under my garden, and I was wondering how I go about getting permission to connect to this in order to prevent the persistent garden flooding that I see - do I just approach the water company? And how likely are they to agree? Do they have a choice? The only alternative at the moment is to lay channels that send the water downhill (towards my neighbour - who already has problems of her own)
Finally - I have the option this year to move the garage (it's only a pre-fab job) to one side - effectively covering my half of the hard-standing. Before doing so, I'd like to lay a new base in order to slightly elevate the floor of the garage (to prevent it filling up in times of rain), but this would then leave my neighbours with their hard-standing having no drainage at all - what are my obligations here? Am I obliged to provision for their surface-water drainage as the current solution (such as it is) sends it over to my property?
