Garden drainage - anyone any experience?

M

monkey0804

Registered User
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128
Hi, we are in our house for 4 years now, and are so lucky to have a large garden (for a Dublin semi-d, that is), that unfortunately is prone to flooding. For 4 years, we have been saying we must do something about it and not getting around to it. Last summer it was a swamp, and so far this year it hasn't been much better.

Our neighbours have the same problems and have sorted it in recent years by putting in a herringbone drainage system back to a well, with a pump in the well that pumps the well when full back into the drains by the house. This pumping into the drains seemingly is illegal, I'm not sure why.

So we have the choice of doing the illegal yet proven system our neighbours have, or doing something else. I don't know what the something else might be and don't know where to find someone who might. I don't want to go to someone who doesn't come with a recommendation (I've been burned before by crap workmen).

Can anyone suggest anything. I love my garden but can do nothing with it - my plants are dying due to the excessive flooding. I've just weeded my veg patch with is also water logged, so my lovely garden is currently sort of useless to me.

Please help!
 
from DLRCC

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In modern housing estates the drainage system is divided into two types of sewer. Foul sewers carry wastewater from sinks, showers, toilets, washing machines and dishwashers to the Councils Sewage Treatment Works where it is treated before being discharged into the sea. Surface or Storm Water sewers carry rainwater from roofs and roads to the nearest river system. If a sink, shower, toilet or any other wastewater appliance is connected to the surface water system instead of the foul, it will discharge untreated wastewater to the nearest river, causing pollution.[/FONT]


I can't imagine there is anything illegal about connecting pumps/sumps to your surface water system (water from roofs and paths). Problems arise when people divert toilet waste to the surface water system or flood the foul sewers with surface water.
 

Thanks Davidoco, what you are saying makes sense. Some one mentioned to me that it was to do with the chemical drainage (weedkiller etc.) from your garden going into the water works. I wonder how I could find out for sure on this one? I don't want to proceed with putting the excess water into the drains and find out in a couple of years that I'm in trouble and have to undo it.
 
monkey0804 said:
chemical drainage (weedkiller etc.)
Click to expand...

Just don't use weedkiller. It sounds fair enough but I've no idea where you would find something on that.

Subsoil drainage which you would be doing is not covered by the 1997 Building Regulations guidance documents but there is mention of it in the legal instrument which brought about the 1997 regulations. Note this may have been amended since.

The 97 statutory instrument states the following

C2 Subsoil drainage shall be provided if necessary so as
to prevent the passage of ground moisture to the interior of​
the building or damage to the fabric of the building.

Loads of people use subsoil drainage (particulary for lawns) which are then connected to the surface water drain.
 
Hi there we had a similar problem if like us it was flooding in one particular area
you can dig what is known as a "sink pit" the horticulturist in woodies told us how to do it.
It is basically a hole in the gound - 2meters*2 meters * 3 meters down.
Put garden membrane in the hole.
Put small stones (about 8 bags) in to the hole on top of the membrane.
Put 1 bag of sand on top of the stones and cover with membrane
Cover the rest of the sole in top soil.

What you can do for surrounding areas is put in some french drains that dran into the sink pit - any garden centre can advise.

We have dogs and near our back door was a flood if there was rain - we put in the sink pit ourselves - oone very tough week end and things have improoved to no end....
 
We put in two sink pits, of a metre by a metre in depth and width and then ran yellow drainage tubing around the wet areas which drained into the pits. Did this seven years ago ,the quote from the professional was 450 Pounds but we did it ourselves for about 100Pounds. Hard work as we had to rotavate the entire lawn as well due to inadequate drainage. There was a hard pan that didn't allow water through. This was a garden supposedly landscaped by the builder.....basically a bit of soil thrown on top of compacted ground.
This worked for us and the lawn grows well without any flooding.
 
Hi PinkyBear,
what do you mean by Garden Membrane - are you referring to what you dig out of pit to begin with?
If so, how much do you dump back in after the initial dig and before the stones?
Thanks.
 
This article deals with drainage for the home lawn owner, and includes a few pics of the various elements....[broken link removed]
 
HI everyone and thanks. Our particular prob is that we are sited over and esker, which is a glacier river bed (or this is one of the more logical reasons I've been given from the people who are here for the last 30 years). One of my neighbours has a well dug, about the demension mentioned above and when it rains the well fills, it goes back up the pipes and the flooding is possibly worse. Hence the reason I wanted to pump back into storms drains.

1234 you mentioned foul water drainage system - is this the storm drains/drains that the rainwater from the roof is piped into? I would have thought that surely treating garden flood water would compare to treating rainwater from the roof? Am open to being educated about that.

Thanks for all the responses, it's very helpful particularly the Irish Gardener web site.
 
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