garden drainage

[Stephen]

Hello,

My garden consists of a patio then a lawn, which is about 2' higher than the patio. At the other end of the lawn is a block paved driveway, on which we park the car; unfortunately the driveway slopes towards the garden. In the heavy rain we have had lately, the lawn has become very boggy and we have to walk from the car to the house through it.

A job that needs doing is to lay a path, so we would avoid walking on the boggy lawn.

I am also thinking of laying a strip of channel drain, something like this:

across the bottom of the driveway. This would stop water rolling down the drive and onto the garden and I hope it would make a big difference.

The question is: how to connect the channel to the drains? If the drain needs to be 1'under the patio, do I dig a channel 3' deep along the lawn and lay 110mm pipe into this (at a suitable gradient)?

That seems like a lot of digging! Could I dig a shallower trench down the lawn, perhaps 1' deep, and then have a drop at the patio end? I wonder if I might need a rodding point at the drop?

can I refill the trench with the soil I have removed, or would I be best to use sand around the pipe?

I suppose whilst I have the trench I could include some empty 40mm pipe to use in the future for wiring or water etc.

My neighbour says that the previous owner buried some perforated drain pipe somewhere within the lawn but it doesn't go anywhere.

I presume it was something like this:

Would it be worth while to use some of that as well?

Thanks, Stephen.

[Malcolm Race]

If you read the first review for the floplast it seema that B&Q only stock the non-perforated pipe which is not land drain. In the early 70s I had a problem in draining a small garden on a clay soil. I put in a land drain (porous clay) running down to an old raiway cutting. That improved the drainage.

In my present house (also on clay) the garden sloes down towards the patio which slopes towards the house. When the patio was installed, I had Clark-drain type drains installed along the wall of the house - no p[roblems in 10 years. In your situation I would be inclined :-) to do what you suggest with a drain down to a surface wathe drain at the house and if you still need to do more lay perforated land drain and connect this to the drain from the drive.

I believe that land drain should be bedded in and surrounded by sharp sand/pea shingle to prevent fine soil particles clogging the holes

You might like to look at tyhe Pavingexpert website (a long time favourite of the group but not mentioned much recently)

will give you a start in the right area

Malcolm