Soak Hole problem

tucker1971

Hi all,

I had a garden suffering from very bad drainage resulting in flooding during the winter and basically making the garden a no go area. During last summer I decided to get a team in to dig up the whole garden, install land drainage, and run the lot into a soak hole. Everything seem to be working fine until the heavy rain of this week..Now I have a flood where the soak hole is situated, which seems to be wors than any flooding I ever had prior to the drainage been done!

I am lost for what to do at this stage, any advice appreciated.

flutered

did you get professional advice or did you go diy

tucker1971

flutered wrote: »

did you get professional advice or did you go diy

Best way would be to describe it as a semi professional

Oldtree

disturbed silt could now have gone down your drainage and blocked the soak hole.

tucker1971

Oldtree wrote: »

disturbed silt could now have gone down your drainage and blocked the soak hole.

I remember now when the test hole was dug for the soak pit that it filled up with water about 2 inches from the bottom, and that after 24hrs the water level had increased. I now fear that this was the water table level and not a "sign of good drainage" as the contractor told me. If that was the case, should the soak hole and been dug to levels way under the water table? I fear that now I have effectively a "sump", that will continue to overflow....

Sonnenblumen

It is impossible without knowing more details of the site, ground characteristics and completed works to express a view, opinion or even suggest a remedy.

I would be inclined to agree with your assessment, that what you have is a sump and not a soak pit, which is a common mistake. Inadequate depth, capacity and falls, which can result in making a bad problem even worse.

GY A1

tucker1971 wrote: »

Hi all,

I had a garden suffering from very bad drainage resulting in flooding during the winter and basically making the garden a no go area. During last summer I decided to get a team in to dig up the whole garden, install land drainage, and run the lot into a soak hole. Everything seem to be working fine until the heavy rain of this week..Now I have a flood where the soak hole is situated, which seems to be wors than any flooding I ever had prior to the drainage been done!

I am lost for what to do at this stage, any advice appreciated.

did u run any drainage pipes away from the soak hole/pit also

ponddigger

hi. any photos,jack

tucker1971

GY A1 wrote: »

did u run any drainage pipes away from the soak hole/pit also

No, just ran the drainage pipes direct to the soak hole. As the garden is in an estate there was no option to run them anywhere else

stooge

Not really a solution but more of a alternative suggestion. You could run install a pump and filter at the soak hole and pump water to a separate water tank e.g. use the stored water for washing cars/windows etc etc?