Soakaway for summer house

[lms78]

Hi,

I have a summer house that is 5m by 3.5m. Its been up for 3 years and I was initially advised that I did not need guttering as the water fell onto soil. Its built on a gravel base. Over the winter there was evidence of some water getting in through the corners, so think its best I put up some guttering.

For the soakaway, I have been given some advice, but I'm not 100% that I trust it based on some reading around the subject......

I am told that the soakaway only needs to be approx 1m away from the summerhouse (everywhere else, I have read a minimum of 5m, although I'm not sure if that is specifically for soakaways designed to take water from larger house sized roofs) and that in terms of size I only need to dig to about 0.6m depth and the hole be approx 0.3m by 0.3m widthways, which seems small to me.

I was told that I can use 10mm shingle to part fill it (as I have some left from a previous project and its a bit tricky to get materials at the minute) and then fill it up with some rubble (I intend to smash up a few already broken 50mm deep slabs for that).

Does the above sound ok? If not, please can you advise what needs to change.

I have also read that it can help to line it with weed matting to prevent the shingle mixing with the soil and eventually clogging up. Is that worth doing?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[^woody^]

Don't overthink it. The standards for soakaways are in context of proximity to a building with foundations. You have a timber frame on gravel

You can put the soakaway where you like. Yes, line it with a geotextile fabric.

But your problem may be more related the the design (poor roof overhang) or the base (not high enough of the ground) or quality of the joints and base treatment, so check those things first.

 

[lms78]

Thanks for the reply. I'll go ahead with the initial plan then, good to have it confirmed that what I plan should be ok.

In terms of the other possible causes of the problem that you mention...

The overhang is as pictured, the felt comes approx 2cm off the wood, but there is also a bit of wood overhang between that ant the main wall.

I have recently re-painted it and ran some silicone into the joins on the corner.

The base was dug in to make it as close to ground level as possible, and as the land was slightly sloped some of it is actually below ground level. The sides are dug away though so its not in contact with anything.

What do you mean by base treatment? I don't think I applied any kind of treatment.

I don't suppose that there is anything I can do at this stage if there is something wrong with the base?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[Johnny Allround]

You could run your surface water into a waterbutt and recycle the water for the garden. Just a thought.