Garden drainage

[Chippygeoff]

My son has recently moved into a newly built house. Taylor woodrow turfed the back garden but it is quite boggy and unsuitable for the children to play on it. I am completely in the dark as to how to remedy the situation. There is a slight slope to the garden with feather edge fencing all round. I believe the soil below the turf has a high clay content. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. many thanks.

 

[Jack (W)]

Geoff,
I too know nothing about drainage, but I've just discovered that I am pretty much in the same boat as your son.
This is quite an extensive website, and might offer some insight and hopefully a solution to your son's problem:

http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain16.htm

Jack (W)

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I virtually cured some bad flooding by chance - I had a post hole borer on hire for something else, and I knew there was a clay pan under the (very large) garden so I bored about twenty four foot holes in the flooded area. I then filled them with gravel and put a turf back on top. This was thirty years ago and it has not to the best of my knowledge flooded since.

 

[graduate_owner]

With new builds, if you investigate closer you may very well find more than just clay under the turf. My daughter's lawn was boggy all the time and on raising the turf we found a general rubbish dump there - paint cans, lids, plastic dpc off cuts, empty mastic cartridges - you name it and we found it. So we cleared that lot first and then added gravel to open up the clay. You do need a lot though. A gardening website will probably give you ideas on quantities. And get yourself some rubbish sacks in readiness.

K

 

[carlb40]

With new builds, if you investigate closer you may very well find more than just clay under the turf. My daughter's lawn was boggy all the time and on raising the turf we found a general rubbish dump there - paint cans, lids, plastic dpc off cuts, empty mastic cartridges - you name it and we found it. So we cleared that lot first and then added gravel to open up the clay. You do need a lot though. A gardening website will probably give you ideas on quantities. And get yourself some rubbish sacks in readiness.

K

That is what i was also thinking. But i would probably get a skip rather than bags.

 

[Stu_2]

I'd be tempted to have a quick look what's under there. If they're still there building another phase, you'd be able to go and get the site agent to take a look and get it sorted.

 

[kingcod]

If you don't mind a bit of digging then you could put in a land drain and a soakaway. The land drain should be through the boggiest area, on a gentle slope, and could feed into the soakaway. The soakaway should be about a metre square and deep- if it can go below the clay layer all the better. Fill the bottom of the soakaway with sharp sand and rubble, then top up with the material you originally dug out.

 

[cambournepete]

And don't forget if it's a new build they will have been deliberately compacting the clay soils with big caterpillar tracked diggers just for the fun of it as well, or at least that's what they seem to do.
Digging it will be very hard work - might be worth hiring a small digger for the weekend and having a play with that.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Builders burying waste (and fly tipping) has been on the increase since landfill taxes went through the roof (and therefore skip costs). Nice work Government, introduce a policy where the toxic waste goes into thousands of small unregulated dump sites right where children are playing, rather than few, larger, regulated ones. Still, at least the exchequer has more revenue!

 

[RogerS]

If you don't mind a bit of digging then you could put in a land drain and a soakaway. The land drain should be through the boggiest area, on a gentle slope, and could feed into the soakaway. The soakaway should be about a metre square and deep- if it can go below the clay layer all the better. Fill the bottom of the soakaway with sharp sand and rubble, then top up with the material you originally dug out.

In my experience unless you can get below the clay layer then a soakaway is a waste of time as all you are doing is making a pond underground. You might as well leave out all the sharp sand and rubble and give the water more room ! It's going to clag up with finer material pretty quickly in any case.

Very simple to see just how well it drains is to dig a deep hole, fill it with water and see how long it takes to soakaway. The diameter of this test hole can be quite small. That way, when you discover that it doesn't, you've saved yourself a load of digging!

 

[DMF]

Soak aways are often used where they shouldn't be and do have their own set of rules if their to be effective. Why is this not a job for Taylor Woodrow? I'd be looking at all my bits of paper and then telling them to sort it out.

Dean

 

[blackrodd]

Soak aways are often used where they shouldn't be and do have their own set of rules if their to be effective. Why is this not a job for Taylor Woodrow? I'd be looking at all my bits of paper and then telling them to sort it out.

Dean

+ 1 for above! Find out when there's a site meeting, be polite but firm, should be well worth it! Rodders