Rainwater soakaway construction.

  • Thread starter Flying Torquewrench
  • Start date
GazCro

GazCro

Well-known member
No drainage at all! There used to be a building but that discharged straight onto the road which is no longer allowed.

We have no water run-off at all from the field during heavy rain so the top layer absorbs some water. Just not enough to build a soakaway.

I will see what the drainage department says on Tuesday otherwise I may have to get creative.
Could be some land drains in there though especially if you don't have a lot of surface run off. You'll have you get the coat hangers out.
 
M

Monkeybusiness

Well-known member
gonna need some sort of structure under that roof though
Good idea though imo if designed into a building from the start (not really relevant from a cost point of view here I would imagine, but food for thought whilst discussing the subject).
 
GazCro

GazCro

Well-known member
Good idea though imo if designed into a building from the start (not really relevant from a cost point of view here I would imagine, but food for thought whilst discussing the subject).
Tis a good idea a system like that if designed into a building from scratch. Won't be cheap though.
 
V8Druid

V8Druid

do it as well as you can,but learn to do it better
Good idea though imo if designed into a building from the start (not really relevant from a cost point of view here I would imagine, but food for thought whilst discussing the subject).
Tis a good idea a system like that if designed into a building from scratch. Won't be cheap though.
very ........ but will take some holding up ... all that water above your head ....... gonnawannabe a hell of a support structure .... to get me through the door
 
Flying Torquewrench

Flying Torquewrench

Active member
@Bri963 I am located near Alvechurch (just north of Redditch).

From a price point a Blue roof is just not practical. The cost of the roof itself is quite high and then the underlying structure has to be increased as you have all that water sitting on top.

A couple of 10000 liter holding tanks with an overflow to a pond or swale will probably be the cheapest solution.

I am trying to get hold of the British Geology Service to confirm what deposits we have in the area. We have several old gravel pits in the area, one of which is only a 100 yards away from the top of our land. The bottom of this pit has no clay and is on roughly the same elevation as where our soakaway would be. Need to consider my options and maybe find a way to dig a bit deeper before trying an extendable post hole borer. The clay has no stones in it and digs out relatively easy.
 
Flying Torquewrench

Flying Torquewrench

Active member
Have a read about suds ,you can build a underground storage tank with the plastic crate system.big hole lots of storage and it will eventually soakaway

Unfortunately according to SuDS our ground is unsuitable for a soakaway. I dug a trial pit and after 48 hours the water level only dropped by 2 inches. Currently I have a drainage design engineer looking at it and he thinks that a 10000 litre tank covers 95% of our requirement. For the 1 in a 100 year storm the tank will need a suitable overflow which will most likely be a pond or swale. The first foot of ground drains reasonable well so a shallow swale might just work.
 
Canal Navvy

Canal Navvy

Well-known member
For drilling a test bore an Edelman auger is ideal in clay. When putting in level monitoring deep datums i can get down to 5 metres fairly quickly with a 2" hole. Hand driven, easily extendable and very discreet ;)
 
Flying Torquewrench

Flying Torquewrench

Active member
Thanks @Canal Navvy ! I have an Edelman auger so that should not be a problem.

Had several quotes in to design the system and make the report. Wish I could do it myself but the council here demands that it is done by a professional drainage engineer. As we have already been battling with the council for the last 3 years it is just easier to give in and hand it to somebody else. They are quite happy for me to provide the results of the percolation tests which saves a bit of money and the results will work.
 
Top