Soakaway advice for front drive

[Darren]

I'm in the process of getting from front garden block-paved, but have a slight dilema on what to do with the rainwater, ie there's a slight slope from the road pavement into my garden (roughly 3 degrees).

The distance from the road path to my house front is 6.01m and the width of the front garden is 5.47m. So the entire area is just under

33 m-sq.

The slope of the proposed new driveway will roughly hit my house front around 26cm off the horizontal, because of the slight incline.

Is there some formula to work out whether a small soakaway would be more than adequate? My only concern about the soakaway (after readng a few sites, ie

is that I shouldn't be using one to begin with, due to promixty to the building and fear of saturating the foundations!

I don't not have any other alternatives other than to just let the water gather as it's too far from a drain.

Given the dimensions and incline etc would the amount of water gathering be anything to worry about? Should I just go ahead with a drive without the soakaway?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Phil L]

Don't do it. The volume of water landing on a 33m2 area over the year is huge - yes it lands there now but it soaks away natuarally as it lands, you will be concentrating it into a small area.

How far away is the nearest drain? - I did one like this about six months ago and had to dig a 40ft trench, it only took a day and aout £150 of materials.(all plastic, naturally!)

Can you put in a retaining wall about 2 foot high, near to the house and have the drive flowing away from the building?

How much brickwork is showing underneath your dampcourse as it stands now? - if there are a few steps up into the house it may be possible to have it running towards the road without a retaining wall.

[Nigel Molesworth]

Can't you slope it the other way?

A soakaway would have to be by the roadway to be far enough away, so you'd have to dig a drain back the other way.

[Darren]

Nearest drain is around 40 feet away, around the corner of my building and down the shared entry, which is also solid concrete.

Thats an interesting idea and something that may well work.

2 bricks.

[Darren]

This might be my only choice.

Ok. Thanks.

[Derek ^]

Could you pave it with pierced concrete blocks like councils sometimes use (there's a hard standing for council minibuses near here outside an old folks day care centre), and fill up the holes with gravel.

DG

[Darren]

I've never of these. Do they look as good as block paving?

[Nigel Molesworth]

No, they look crap.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Depends what soil you have there, amongst other things.

In extremis, let the whole lot drain towards the house, and if the slope continues behind the house, dig a french drain (perf pipe in a gravel filled ditch) around the house and exit somewhere downhill, or into the gutter/drainpipe soakaway system.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Until the grass grows through, then they look like lawn, but you can drive on them. More or less.

[Nigel Molesworth]

Got to be a terrace with those dimensions.

[Darren]

Semi-detached with clay soil unfortunately. Don't know how far the clay goes down either........

[The Natural Philosopher]

Right. You need to find the guttering soakaways and try and feed into that system.

If you only have concrete down the only outside, running more drains is going to be a bitch.

Don't dismiss open gullies or 'rills' though...could have one running past the back door...

..feeding a small fishpond perhaps :-)