Soakaways and Mini Digger Hire

[Gabe]

Thinking of  installing soakaways around our house as the ground is very wet, particulary around the back of the house (north facing) in winter.The main house has guttering but many of the down pipes don't seem to go anywhere in particular. The ground is clay soil and the land slopes gently away from the house which is useful. I was planning something akin to a ring main of soakaways going around the house to then drain away using the natural gradient. The property is slightly raised from the surrounding countryside, so I am confident that it will ultimately drain away safely without any inconvenience to me or others. 

My questions are:

This will be alot of work to do, to others think it is worthwhile ?  The house itself does not appear damp, even though it is currently unoccupied and has no heating.

Does anybody know the going rate for the hire of a mini digger, as I could not facing doing this by hand?

Thanks..............   Gabe

[hardhat]

hire cost of a digger near me 120euros plus delivery 30 euros ,plus fuel,i have one and a tipper for wich i charge 300 per day for me and machines ,i only work within a thirty km radius of chalais so you probably need someone close by,you might find someone cheaper  ive seen a advert for man and machine 25 an hour but i would bet this lunatic is very busy

[Gabe]

Hardhat,

Based on your experience how long would it take, using the digger, to excavate a soakaway as I have described it. Not precise, but if you assume a rectangular soakaway approx.30m x 20m, total length 100m ? Generally good,clear access all round.

Do others think that this approach sounds correct, or is it a bit overkill ?

Gabe

[hardhat]

hi gabe,dont know what others think but ive put field drains all round my place as a safe garde,as for time its not just the digging out wich i would say half a day would be somewere near,you have to lay the drain with pebble under and over lay a membrane,then back fill,take at least two days i would say,if you can use a machine,if not ?

 

[Jc]

Do you really mean 30m x20m x100m;somewhat large for a soakaway-you could get several houses in that space?

[Weedon]

I have done a similar sort of thing as hardhat.  But I wouldn't dig a soakaway if you have clay as I think it would get waterlogged. I would lay the field drains to the perimeter of your property (provided it's not too far of course).

If you ask locally there is sure to be somebody with a mini-digger prepared to do the work.  I asked in my nearest garden centre and sure enough there was a chap in the next village who did all of my digging.  I also hired a mini-digger to have a go myself first but found it more cost effective to get the chap in as he could do it far quicker and neater then me.

If memory serves me right I was charged about €300 per day which included him supplying 2 little tracked, tipping barrows for me to cart the dirt away to dump it.

I am not an expert by any means just somebody muddling along.

weedon

[Gabe]

Thanks guys useful advice,

I will look at the field drain option and  take your point about paying somebody to do it, it will probably come to the same cost and be a better job for it. Just out of interest what size drain did you install both pit size and drainage pipework and do you have any recollection of the costs involved. I assume that the membrane is there to stop the soil refilling and blocking the drainage.

JC as to dimensions, the 30mx20m was the approx size of a rectangle around the house, 100m was the total length of the four sides.

Many thanks....Gabe

[Mysfloss]

do you mean 30x20 centimetres?why not run it into a puit perdu instead?

[Gabe]

No I really mean metres. It is the length of the trench that would need to be dug around the house i.e. 100metres in total

Gabe

[Jc]

Yes,but still how deep and how wide??

[Wozza]

Gabe

I have installed land drains / field drains in a couple of my houses in the past. We had a long run behind our house in Wales and found a 4'' (100mm) drain worked well. If you run a drain along each 30m long side of your house, then join them with a run down one of the shorter ends, it may be prudent to increase the pipe size after the join to 150mm. As with earlier post, membrane above pipe is cruial to stop it blinding, as is a good layer of gravel all round the pipe.

As a separate point, I have seen two types of land drain here in France - the flexible corrugated stuff with holes all around the circumference, and rigid PVC pipe with holes on one side only. I would recommend the former (I think the latter is for Fosse septique drains?)

Hope my limited experience helps.

Warren

[Dave&Olive]

hi

             ok my subject..... if you have no damp why bother !!! second if you have a slope away from the house there is no need to fit land drainage pipes ,a trench filled with 20/20 will do just line it with geo-tex , and make the trench the same size as a whacker plate to stop shrinkage , so you can whack it down .

yes the rigid pipes with slits in are for the fosse sand fiters the flexy pipes for drainage.

                                    dave

[hardhat]

[quote user="Dave&Olive"]

hi

             ok my subject..... if you have no damp why bother !!! second if you have a slope away from the house there is no need to fit land drainage pipes ,a trench filled with 20/20 will do just line it with geo-tex , and make the trench the same size as a whacker plate to stop shrinkage , so you can whack it down .

 

why bother doing half a job ,and if you do half a job,why whack it down and make it harder for water to travel through it,

trench size dosnt need to be much more than 100 m ,size of field drain pipe,maybe someones bought a whacker and wants to play with it

[Dave&Olive]

[quote user="hardhat"][quote user="Dave&Olive"]

hi

             ok my subject..... if you have no damp why bother !!! second if you have a slope away from the house there is no need to fit land drainage pipes ,a trench filled with 20/20 will do just line it with geo-tex , and make the trench the same size as a whacker plate to stop shrinkage , so you can whack it down .

 

why bother doing half a job ,and if you do half a job,why whack it down and make it harder for water to travel through it,

trench size dosnt need to be much more than 100 m ,size of field drain pipe,maybe someones bought a whacker and wants to play with it

[/quote]

 hi

and end up with a depression in the garden ?  or a rut in the driveway !!!

                   dave

[hardhat]

you dont whack field drains,pebble dosent compact,its not ment to compact,if you did happen to do a proper job and put a field drain in the trench you would crush it and defeate the object.

to stop ruts in drive ways .reinforce were you drive over

to stop ruts in gardens spread more soil, but dont just keep crushing it down onto the pebble or dispite the membrane you will end up with a underground mess that lets nothing through

 

[hardhat]

why is this thread not going onto a following page

[AllezAllezAllez]

Hello Gabe

I contemplated over almost identical issues when dealing with my renovation list.  My thoughts are more about what's involved rather than whether or not you should do it.

Like you, my house is on a slight slope and surrounded by clay.  Unlike you, damp was rising through the stone walls, as clay retains alot of water and a small tarmacced lane adjacent to my house encourages alot of rainfall to collect on my flank wall. 

Therefore I decided to dig a trench around the entire perimeter of the house, this being about 90 linear meters and this took 3 days of graft and one bent pick axe.  I did originally believe my digger would do most of the work, but then realised that the slew arm of the digger only reaches 45°.  It is therefore important to hire one that manages a 90° angle if the drain is to be installed literally at the base of the house perimeter.

Whilst the trench was open, I flaunched the foundations with waterproof cement - about 2 cms thick.  I put in a layer of sand on the bottom of the trench, then put in the pipes with the slits on one half - facing upwards and then covered that with geo-textile membrane and then backfilled with 10-20mm gravel.

These pipes connect all around and gradually drain down hill to a small pond about 60m2, which also collects gutter water.  The damp has gone and the walls can now be repaired.

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

[Dave&Olive]

hi

            sorry but had a bit of a laugh at this one ..... my mini digger  only slews at 45 ...then run the digger in at 45...      45+45= 90 ..... sorry still laughing

                               dave

[Gabe]

Allez,

Thanks for your info, very interesting indeed. I wasn't intending to get as close to the house as you have with the soakaway/ drain, mainly for the reasons that you stated, ease of access. Do you think that this is a mistake? You know to go to all this effort and not do the job properly. My main concern is really at the back and to one side of the house (North facing/East side), as the ground here is particularly marshy in the winter. One idea was to dig out around these sides and to install a hard landscape/ patio/pathway around the property. I thought that I could then install a drain as part of the groundworks for this, any hardcore layer would also help drainage.

What do you or others think ?

Gabe

[Cassis]

Hiring a bloke with a JCB would probably do a job like this in a fraction of the time it would take a mini-digger.  We had a trench dug 4 metres deep, 2 metres across and 20 metres long to lay a new 'buse' to drain the lake and it cost 150 euros including tax - took him 2 hours to dig and 1 hour to refill and he only charged for the time he was on site.  But I don't know wheter 50 euros an hour is typical rate nationally.

[friend of stouby]

Just to revive this subject, and in particular field or French drain pipework.

Had a look at quite a few websites re field drains recently and most were advocating using solid pipe with holes only at the bottom rather than the flexible convoluted pipe as the ridges create friction to water flow. Was in a Big Mat and took the oportunity to look at the field drain pipework and was surprised at how thin the wall of the rigid pipe was ( this is the pipe used for fosse septiques ) the convoluted pipe was also semi flexible.

The question is, is there another type of solid field drain pipe that is used only for field drains but with a thicker wall thickness, maybe a similar thickness to standard drainage pipes, or in France is the fosse septique pipe used for all these applications. I don't want to use the old style ceramic or clay pipes but prefer to work in plastic.

I need to install a field drain behind our house across the uphill slope, and a local builder has mentioned that the drain must have the depth of the rear wall foundations. The drain will be dug about 5m uphill of the rear wall and will need to go to a depth of approximately 1.2m, so therefore quite a weight of gravillion ?(spelling) above the pipe, and it occurrs that the pipe may be crushed?

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any experience of this depth of field drain.

Jamie

 

[Digger]

Hi where are you i.e. Department as I have a mini digger for Hire

[friend of stouby]

Hello Digger

I bought a mini digger as there are an endless supply of jobs for it around our property, but thanks for asking. We are a long way from you in any case at the northern end of 03 - Allier.

best wishes

Jamie