SOAKAWAYS

Men are from Mars, women from Venus and some tradespeople are from Disney as they’re always taking the mickey… 

Not that I’m complaining about ours as he’s doing a grand job digging what is called a ‘soakaway’ in the back garden but sometimes I fail to understand builder logic.  Why wasn’t this done earlier in the project before the monsoon season started?  I would have dug this out in July/August or after all the guttering on the extension was fitted.  This is definitely not the time to be doing anything outdoors.

 

Working in very damp conditions

Whilst I’ve been devoting time to painting up the extension, our garden has become a movie set piece for a remake of The Great Escape -  there are holes everywhere! 

Soakaways act as large drains enabling rainwater to be carried away from your house to soak away under the ground in a huge pit filled with what look like giant milk crates (also known as SUDS – sustainable urban drainage systems).

 

Soakaway crates

Very, very big in size

It appears you can’t connect your gutter downpipes to existing sewers or waterways but instead have to dispose of your own surface rainwater in the garden.  Current building regulations state you have to have a soakaway at least 5 metres away from your property which is essentially almost in the middle of our lawn.

 

Must be 5 metres away from the house

In by gone days, soakaway pits were either filled with stones/gravel or constructed like a honeycomb of bricks rather like a bee hive but in this modern age, plastic crates that are then covered in a special membrane are used. 

The membrane wraps around the crates to prevent any soil from trickling in and bunging up the works over time.

 

Crates wrapped in special membrane

These crates are very big so a pit almost as deep as a grave is dug.  The hole in our garden was so big I thought it could double up as an outdoor swimming pool and with this weather it wouldn’t take that long to fill!

 

Digging a pit for the crates

You're gonna need a deeper hole

Large brown pipes connected to your gutter downpipes then feed into the sunken crates.  More deep trenches across the lawn. 

 

Pipe running from the back of the house

To connect to the soakaway

Eventually after the muddy mess has dried out, the original grass turfs will be replaced on top of everything but I don’t expect to see a pristine, bowling green flat expanse when I look out the window.   After this little lot, our back lawn is never going to look quite the same again.

 

Not exactly properly replaced

Charlie Dimmock would definitely not approve!