perforated drain pipe as a soakaway?

Aug 02, 2010 11 Replies

Hi,



I have seen some coils of perforated pipe in "been and queued" but sister company Screwfix doesn't seem to stock it. Is it known by another name?



The Pavingexpert web site says you can use it one of two ways: holes-up to collect water from waterlogged ground to take elsewhere or holes-down to dispose of water into the ground.



It's the latter I am interested in: could you lay a length of this in a trench and use it as a soakaway?



TIA


I thought it was perforated all around, not checked what I have in the shed. I suspect Screwfix may not carry re physical size - surprised B&Q carried it (must be a proper warehouse :-)

Ebay source: From 80mm 25m at =A318 plus delivery to larger sizes, it is a big bulky item re courier.

Online source: Drains Direct or similar do the same sort of price, but also carry the UNperforated version for carrying water elsewhere.

Dig a trench of 1-in-200 fall, line with geotextile fabric, infill with stones. If the area will see heavy traffic you need to use rigid perforated pipe to stop it being crushed.

IME it's not worth a carrot in terms of draining ground, and certainly useless as a soakaway, it does have an effect over large areas like farmers feilds in reducing waterlogging, but far more effective would be 2 milk crates wrapped in weed membrane and surrounded in 3/4 stone, with a gulley into the top - a soakaway is just a holding tank, designed to hold flood water until the surrounding ground can take it away naturally.

Perforated pipe should work fine into a drain.

Perforated pipe into a soakaway needs careful examination of the ground. The soakaway needs to be sized according to the rate at which water can soakaway (volume) versus the area being drained. That means a test- pit to see if digging down through (say) clay eventually finds a free draining layer. Milk crates provide a lot of space, the old rubble pit was more a pond if the area could not drain fast enough :-) The test used to be dig down in February and watch (time) what happened to the water.

Linear drainage will handle bulk surface water drainage on clay somewhat better, Aco and other makes exist.

Wouldn't it depend how much you used? If you had a large coil running up and across and down almost following the fences around your garden, wouldn't that cover a big enough area to drain the rain from the roof of the house?

TIA

replying to js.b1, C. J. wrote: Hi, I have a solid pipe to a beer crate soakaway in clay soil which I use for my grey water. It has always been a bit of a bog. After 4 years it has clogged up through the pipe and I'm thinking that using perforated pipe from beginning to end, without a soakaway crate might work better as, if I Bury it shallow, it will dispense the grey water lengthy and gradually into a less clayed soil. the earth gets more clayed the further down you go. I'm just wondering if anyone found out whether this 'one side' perforated pipe exists because most I can see has all round perforations :-/!!??

replying to js.b1, C. J. wrote: Hi, I have a solid pipe to a beer crate soakaway in clay soil which I use for my grey water. It has always been a bit of a bog. After 4 years it has clogged up through the pipe and I'm thinking that using perforated pipe from beginning to end, without a soakaway crate might work better as, if I Bury it shallow, it will dispense the grey water lengthy and gradually into a less clayed soil. the earth gets more clayed the further down you go. I'm just wondering if anyone found out whether this 'one side' perforated pipe exists because most I can see has all round perforations :-/!!??

I'm not seeing how it would help. Fine mesh always clogs. I don't recall the old clay pipe sections having that problem, no mesh & whatever enters can get washed out.

NT

Clay pipe sections will tend to clog at the joints over time.

My property stands on London clay.

40 odd years ago I used 3" perforated plastic pipe (supplied in large rolls which could be unrolled in the trench) buried 3' down with about 6" gravel on top. There were 2 pipes running from almost the front boundary, diverting either side of the property, to a stream at the bottom of the garden. Total distance 350+ yards. I also directed the roof water into these pipes (building control said no because they would clog up, building inspector said it was OK). For quite a few years I would occasionally put a hose into a downpipe and view the water running out at the stream. For the last few years it doesn't visibly run out but neither is the ground boggy so the pipes are distributing water along their length.

Twenty-odd years ago I helped my parents install some in France. Rather than the pipe with small holes in, it was slitted perpendicular to its length. It was normal sized (110mm), black, plastic pipe. From memory, one side had slits covering around a quarter of its diameter, a few mm wide, every 10mm or so.

A quick search has pulled up something similar, although not quite the same.

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SteveW

I've never been that convinced that soak aways in some soils ever work. Clay can hold a certain amount of water, after that it is pointless it just puddles and eventually floods.

Brian

Why are you replying to an 8 year old post ?. FFS READ the original message including date.

If you want chapter and verse on drainage then go and look at Cormaic's drainage forum (PavingExpert.com).

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