Drains: Shallow, 110mm foul water pipe crossing a driveway - options?

May 10, 2017 21 Replies

se to my house's main drain, but it will need to cross a part of my ground s that could conceivably be used for vehicular access on the rare occasion. By necessity, this underground drain needs to be very shallow in order to achieve an acceptable gradient (it can be only about 5" deep at the shallow est point. I 'm hoping to avoid the prohibitive expense of making a concret e trench, capped with flagstones. So I'm wondering if there is an easier op tion, such as using some kind of toughened pipe for the section that crosse s the occasional-car-access point. An alternative possibility might be to f eed the 110mm plastic pipe through some kind of concrete or GRP pipe at tha t section. Do people do this? I even considered concrete flue liners!

way, rather than say midway, so I don't see a problem there. Yes, it can be done the way you suggested. But I was hoping to avoid having to lay any co ncrete base, which would be needed for the block walls. Access for a readym ix lorry is probably not feasible. The subsrate is clayey hardcore. I'm jus t a DIY-er and money is tight. I could probably buy an offcut of reinforced pipe from somewhere, if that's a viable option. It seems hard to source th ough.

Sorry, I forgot to answer that one. It is around 4.5m wide Al_4

Weld mesh is exactly what I have, as it happens. It's only about 1.5mm wire though, but at least it's galvanised. I'm wondering if concrete is even ne cessary in my case, but I think it could be useful for protecting the pipe against pick-axes, e.g., wielded by someone who doesn't know there's a pipe buried there. Al_4

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