Garden Drainage: Start to finish

delly · 30-05-2006 11:40am #1

Ok, I’ve mentioned that I had been sorting my garden out on the odd thread here and there, and last weekend I finally finished. So the following is what I did from start to finish. I’m not saying it will work for everybody, but it may give people a direction to start from.

The garden is 9m wide by 7m long, with a large wall to the back as the house behind me is on higher ground. I got the house in December 2004 and it was pretty clear from the first time I went into the garden that the drainage would be a problem. I was quoted €3,000 to have the garden sorted, so I decided to have a go myself

13/06/05

This pic shows the garden before I did any major work. The previous owner had cut some railway sleepers up and had used them as steps to the shed which I have filled in. The shed itself was surrounded by some trellis which was held in place by 2x4 steaks which had been concreted in.

13/06/05

This gives a better look at the holes left after I had dug the concrete out. The hole in the bottom right was from two concrete posts that I merged together to form my soakaway hole. As I dug this hole, after about .4 of a metre, I had to use a pick axe to make any progress as the clay was too hard. After a metre, the muck turned into regular soft muck which was no problem. In the end the depth is about 1.4 metres. Note the water in the hole on the left, this is from rain from over a week previous, whereas over the Winter the big hole filled up a few times with heavy rain, but drained off after a number of days.

21/07/05

I have cleared the grass at this stage, rotivated it and have started on the trenches which will lead to the big hole. Looking back I may have got a couple of the directions wrong, as the slopes are not the best.

4/03/06

After my Winter break I got stuck in and made some good progress. This is just before the pipes stage

5/03/06

The piping which I used was made by Wavin and is perforated with about a 10cm diameter. At the join points I cut the end of the joining part in two, and tie wrapped it to the main pipe in the middle.

5/03/06

This shows how I laid the pipes a bit better. On the base of the trench I placed the same type of material to stop weeds growing in flowerbeds, as it will stop the soil getting into the stones, but will allow water to flow threw. I’m told that this material will degrade over a number of years, but I think it’s the only thing that can be used to stop the two mixing. The stones I used are 20mm in size and come in 20KG bags.

11/03/06

This shows the main hole being filled up with the rougher type rubble at the bottom. As I got to the top, I mixed in the smaller stones. You can just make out some chicken wire around the edge as well; I used this on top of the porous material to give a stable and flat surface to finish.

9/04/06

I’ve started to fill in the holes at this stage, and have used topsoil which I got in 30kg bags which I got from the local garden centre. In the end I used about 40 bags, and would have been much better getting it delivered in bulk at the start.

25/05/06

This was just before I laid out the new grass. I had thought about planting seed, but the ground is still very hard in areas, and I don’t think that seed would take that well.

26/05/06

This was my day of triumph after nearly a years wait. Laying the sods was hard enough work as they had been rain soaked and pretty heavy, but was nothing compared to the last years digging etc. I got them from http://www.summerhilllawns.ie

I would roughly make up my costs as the following:
Piping €150
Stones €250
Top soil €230
Grass €240
Tools €80
TOTAL = €950

I have some of the piping left for sale (free) over on the FS section if anybody is interested.
http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=861

Feel free to ask any questions as I have been pretty brief in what I have done and have probably missed some info.

The Hill Billy · 30-05-2006 12:13pm

Well done Delly!

It is very nice to see the outcome of your hard work.
Too often do posters ask for advice - receive responses & we never hear of the final outcome.

beolight · 30-05-2006 12:33pm

well done excellent job and very informative post

a few comments you could also have bought drainage stone for 40/50 euros a tonne delivered in tonne bag(they will charge for the bag 10 euros) ask at your local builders providers where is best place to buy bulk delivered stones, this will work out much ceaper than bags. you also get a bag to put all the rubbish and orange clay which can at a later date be lifted into a squip.

same applies to topsoil as you realised

land drainage pipes: there are actually joiner pieces that can be used if you are seeking perfection

GreeBo · 30-05-2006 1:54pm

nice job.
Ive done a lot of work in my house back/garden (not as "basic" as that) and I wish I had taken photos so I could compare the "then" and "now"
when you see it everyday you forget how bad it was.

Let us know how it handles a shed load of rain i.e is it draining!

delly · 30-05-2006 2:09pm

Thanks for the kind words people, thanks also to anybody who helped me along the way.

In relation to the drainage now, before I put the grass down there was a massive rainfall a couple of weeks ago. While a lot of surface water built up during the rain, it had cleared the following day. I suppose time will tell how effective it will be when the grass takes.

AdrianR · 30-05-2006 5:11pm

a few comments you could also have bought drainage stone for 40/50 euros a tonne delivered in tonne bag

Ouch! It's €12 a tonne for loose drainage stones down here, incl delivery.

delly · 30-05-2006 8:14pm

As I was doing it bit by bit, I only got stuff as I needed it, and I don't think i'd have been in the good books if I had a few tonne bags hanging around the driveway for a while

.

tred · 30-05-2006 9:36pm

delly wrote:

As I was doing it bit by bit, I only got stuff as I needed it, and I don't think i'd have been in the good books if I had a few tonne bags hanging around the driveway for a while .

Fair play to you. Best DIY Job I have seen in a while. a lot of work went into, keep us posted on how u get on during the winter. Well done.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ · 31-05-2006 7:21am

well done.... great job.
looks like a lot of work, but obviously payed off...
you will have many a long evening supping on beer admiring your work..
well done again.

JohnBoy · 31-05-2006 4:07pm

just update the thread in a couple of weeks to let us know how the lawn took

Sparky · 01-06-2006 8:59pm

That pipe is excellent stuff, we done a massive garden of lights and used that pipe as we didnt want them to full up with water over time.
The owners of the house said after we installed all cables, where once the back garden would be waterlogged in the middle, its now dry.
We used 100mtrs of the stuff.

Gurgle · 02-06-2006 2:05pm

delly wrote:

I have some of the piping left for sale over on the FS section if anybody is interested.
http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=861

Goddamnit, I've had 40-50m of that stuff rolled up behind my shed for the last 5 years since I did the same job.

Haven't been able to give it away.

delly · 02-06-2006 2:38pm

Gurgle wrote:

Goddamnit, I've had 40-50m of that stuff rolled up behind my shed for the last 5 years since I did the same job.

Haven't been able to give it away.

Maybe your piping could do with a friend

delly · 09-06-2006 9:25am

Just a quick update with a picture after the first cut.

GreeBo · 09-06-2006 10:47am

Nice...looks like you have some nice water pressure there...lucky fecker

delly · 09-06-2006 4:21pm

GreeBo wrote:

Nice...looks like you have some nice water pressure there...lucky fecker

The council are good for at least one thing...

gardenlily · 12-06-2006 5:04am

You really did a good job delly

bubonicus · 16-06-2006 1:26am

Hi Delly,

I think I can figure out what estate you live in from those pics. And from the problem you had. Don't want to say just incase!;)

I also had/have(not sure if it's fixed until it rains heavy) the same problem now for the last 4 years in my back garden.

Just had a landscaper in two day's ago to do something similer, plus extra stuff in the front garden(stone border etc..) for a total of 1200 euros. :eek:

Didn't go for fresh lawn. Lanscape guy put down seed and high grade feed and weed they use on football pitches.

So hopefully we will have bog free gardens this winter:D

delly · 16-06-2006 9:06am

I don't think we are the first or will be the last to have that problem here. Its a bit of a waiting game all right, hopefully it will be ok in the Winter though. I reckon if I had originally got a quote of €1200 I would have gone with it, but the quote I did get was a 'Feck off, i'm not interested' one.

damiand · 16-06-2006 2:03pm

Well done Dell.

Thats the best drainage job I have ever seen. A gardner of which I used to be one would never do such a precise job as that, in fact I had to do you own garden a few years ago and I wasnt as precise as you were.

Congrats.

Gurgle · 16-06-2006 2:46pm

damiand wrote:

Well done Dell.

Thats the best drainage job I have ever seen. A gardner of which I used to be one would never do such a precise job as that, in fact I had to do you own garden a few years ago and I wasnt as precise as you were.

I second that.

And, tbh, turn those pictures into a brochure and drop them into letterboxes in any new estates you can find, you could make a great living out of that work.

delly · 16-06-2006 2:50pm

Thanks for the kind words people, but I reckon at one garden a year, I wouldn't make too much money. Oh, and i'd probably be divorced

.

FrankGrimes · 26-06-2006 5:34pm

Great job on the drainage Delly, and good guide to how to do it aswell.

Seeing this thread as a sticky though reminds me of something I've been meaning to suggest for a while: there are plenty of key posts on key topics floating around this forum but its not always easy to find them. I think a single Key Posts sticky linked to several different key posts would be a great help. They do it over on Askaboutmoney.com and when people dig up an old topic like, say, insulation, its easy to direct them to the Key Post on it where they should add new posts instead of starting separate threads.

I think its a great idea and would help users get to relevant information quicker and reduce regurgitation of issues that have already been dealt with.

Identifying suggestions for Key Posts could be made by anyone but you could make the final call? This would also help capture and reuse much of the incredibly useful information that rooferPete and Kadman have made down through the years which would otherwise dwindle into the hit and miss zone that is the search feature.

Mr Magnolia · 26-06-2006 6:05pm

FrankGrimes wrote:

Great job on the drainage Delly, and good guide to how to do it aswell.

Seeing this thread as a sticky though reminds me of something I've been meaning to suggest for a while: there are plenty of key posts on key topics floating around this forum but its not always easy to find them. I think a single Key Posts sticky linked to several different key posts would be a great help. They do it over on Askaboutmoney.com and when people dig up an old topic like, say, insulation, its easy to direct them to the Key Post on it where they should add new posts instead of starting separate threads.

Agreed, see Delly's post above.

Dellly wrote:

Its hoped that similar projects from other users can be stickyed as well.

Informative project Delly, I'll have to tackle my own garden later this summer too

delly · 26-06-2006 7:04pm

The key post feature is a sticky that I have had on my mind for a while all right, along with cleaning up the links sticky as well. I must check out that list over on askaboutmoney and see how it works as like you say, there is tonnes of info along the line that could be put to good use.

AdrianR · 27-06-2006 1:59pm

Delly wrote:
I would roughly make up my costs as the following:
Piping €150
Stones €250
Top soil €230
Grass €240
Tools €80
TOTAL = €950

Just a tip for anyone else preparing to do something similar, shop around for the piping, I bought 100M of 3" piping for €58 last week, you will probably get it cheaper in Agricultural stores (In most small towns) than in the DIY sheds (B&Q, Homebase etc). 2" piping will be cheaper per metre but it tends to come in 200M rolls and 4" is a lot more expensive than 3".

WhiteWashMan · 27-06-2006 2:12pm

As a suggestion towards the topic of stickie threads etc, and what should be stickied, something we did on the work forum, was to get a list of all the great threads that have been about, and list of links etc, and put them all onto a single stickie.

a sort of index of useful threads that have been on the forum.

that way you dont end up with 17 stickies at the top of a page, but that the information can be easily found without having to do a 3 hour trawl back through a forum.

just a suggestion.

perhaps patrickolee can be mod of stickies from now on.
the power of the stickie ahoy!

delly · 27-06-2006 2:23pm

Indeed, I think a sticky of key threads is the way to go.

Oh, and patrickolee for President!

patrickolee · 28-06-2006 12:35am

I better be really careful here with what I say, or I might get banned and have to create a new user name!! :eek: . Just like poor rooferpete. Guess if this is to be stickied, at least his memory will live on here! You remember Pete right? ... the guy who used to answer all the questions here, before Delly got his _little_ bit of power!

Whitewashman, I actually agree a single sticky with links to useful previous threads is a good idea. My concern with our new mod stickying his pet project was that if he ever lifted a shovel again we'd all get rsi from scrolling through his stickies!

WhiteWashMan · 28-06-2006 8:34am

patrickolee wrote:

I better be really careful here with what I say, or I might get banned and have to create a new user name!! :eek: . Just like poor rooferpete. Guess if this is to be stickied, at least his memory will live on here! You remember Pete right? ... the guy who used to answer all the questions here, before Delly got his _little_ bit of power!

Whitewashman, I actually agree a single sticky with links to useful previous threads is a good idea. My concern with our new mod stickying his pet project was that if he ever lifted a shovel again we'd all get rsi from scrolling through his stickies!

give it a rest.

theTinker · 26-07-2006 8:51pm

very nice work delly, was very informative, im a fan of DIY stff just not very good, i see your lawn was gettting fuller comparing the first and second pics, im very envious, ive a seeded lawn and from day 1 ive been fighting a losing battle against, weeds, moss, clovers, sum wierd things and yello grasss. etc

delly · 27-07-2006 9:47am

theTinker wrote:

very nice work delly, was very informative, im a fan of DIY stff just not very good, i see your lawn was gettting fuller comparing the first and second pics, im very envious, ive a seeded lawn and from day 1 ive been fighting a losing battle against, weeds, moss, clovers, sum wierd things and yello grasss. etc

Thanks, I put on some pre-turf fertiliser on and some lawn feed after I had it down a week. The grass started to then grow like it was on steroids, with the result that I can't really let it go any longer than 2 weeks between cuts at the highest blade setting.

mjffey · 08-10-2006 6:00pm

Hi Dell,

How's the drainage working under your lawn? Still happy with it?

beolight · 08-10-2006 6:06pm

also interested in reply delly

the last couple of weeks would certainly have tested it

delly · 08-10-2006 9:58pm

Not bad at all, however I would like a nice dry run to give it a cut as the growth is really fast. The main body of grass is draining just as well as any garden, the only part that doesn't do as well is from the back wall as far out as the shed. I've decided however to plant 3 trees at the back wall which may help. Haven't decided which type yet, but would maybe like a few cherry blossoms or magnolias, however I'll need to check the long term impact of these trees.

Overall i'm happy with the result as before once you went about two feet from the patio you'd be in mud county.

Yorky · 07-11-2006 11:56am

I read recently that using a hollow-tine aerator to extract soil plugs and then top-dressing with a sandy mixture is useful for improving moisture penetration in waterlogged gardens. Has anyone used this method?

GreeBo · 07-11-2006 11:58am

Yorky wrote:

I read recently that using a hollow-tine aerator to extract soil plugs and then top-dressing with a sandy mixture is useful for improving moisture penetration in waterlogged gardens. Has anyone used this method?

Yep, thats exactly how to do it.
Just look at any golf green/tee.

delly · 07-11-2006 12:02pm

Yorky wrote:

I read recently that using a hollow-tine aerator to extract soil plugs and then top-dressing with a sandy mixture is useful for improving moisture penetration in waterlogged gardens. Has anyone used this method?

It may help, but I think you would have to get past the red clay type soil which is a good 2 feet down to have a good effect.

PhilipMarlowe · 20-01-2007 12:38pm

Proper (USGA) Golf greens are sooooooo far removed from your average back lawn

They have a subsurface drainage system, probably 60cm of gravel, maybe another 100mm of an intermediate layer followed by 300mm of sand (mainly, and some peat or organic material) that the grass roots into.

When these are hollow tined, it is to alleviate the compaction from the traffic (golfers, grass machinery). The small core is removed and replaced with sand. This allows the soil around the holes to expand and 'opens up' the surface and promotes better airflow and grass growth etc.

The compaction in delly's cas was more likely caused by a mixture of JCB's, Teleporters, soil being moved about, all the usual construction horrors.
The 'hard pan' that he had to break with the pick axe was much more the issue for water draining away. Hollow Tining in such a case would more than likely be a waste of time, though it may be be great in other cases.

p.s. nice weeping cedar and maple

delly · 25-01-2007 10:30am

Licksy wrote:

p.s. nice weeping cedar and maple

Credit goes to the previous owners for them

magicbastarder · 04-04-2007 11:36am

delly wrote:

It may help, but I think you would have to get past the red clay type soil which is a good 2 feet down to have a good effect.

this is the really rock hard stuff? is that rock hard due to the nature of the clay itself, or compaction from heavy machinery used to build the house?

delly · 04-04-2007 11:47am

I'd say it was there beforehand, rather than as a result of the building work, although that wouldn't help ether.

Eurorunner · 04-04-2007 12:04pm

@Delly: Do you have a pic of your lawn from right now Delly? The last set were from when the turf went down. A visual scan of it now would tell as to how healthy it is..

magicbastarder · 04-04-2007 12:44pm

delly wrote:

I'd say it was there beforehand, rather than as a result of the building work, although that wouldn't help ether.

could be a plough pan too, if the land was farmed beforehand.

delly · 04-04-2007 1:05pm

I'll be giving it a first cut at the weekend so i'll take a pic. Funnily enough the grass has receded from the edges nearly a foot in places. I hadn't ventured into the back much over the Winter but only noticed it in the last few weeks. I'm hoping it will come back ok once the growing gets into full swing, bit 'tis a bit strange.

positron · 05-04-2007 10:31am

Excellent thread, pics etc Delly, I am going to give it a go myself! Looking forward to the latest pic.

Neil_Sedaka · 19-04-2007 5:38pm

I'm in the middle of doing a similar job to Delly's.
I'm going to dig a deep drain pit but am concerned that I might hit some pipe work (if there's any about)

I plan on digging down about four foot, so if there's any pipes, I'd be sure to hit them.
Question is, is there any way to find out before I dig? Should I write to the Co. Council etc.

Any advice much appreciated, oh, and great job Delly.

Gurgle · 20-04-2007 8:04am

Neil_Sedaka wrote:

I'm in the middle of doing a similar job to Delly's.
I'm going to dig a deep drain pit but am concerned that I might hit some pipe work (if there's any about)

If you haven't already bought the perforated drainage pipe, please come and take the 50 yards or so thats been coiled up behind my shed for the last 5 years.

squire1 · 20-04-2007 8:13am

If Neil dosen't take up the offer I might take that off your hands gurgle. I need about 25M but I think most suppliers only sell it in full lenghts. Where are you based?

Edit, Is it 4" or 6"?

cracla · 07-07-2007 6:33am

Delly great job.....a year or so on from completing the work how's the drainage / garden now?
Also the soak hole you dug has this ever been overwhelmed with prolonged heavy rain?

Gurgle do you still have the pipe? what size is it? where u located?.....think I need to do a similar job in my garden

wetgarden · 10-03-2008 1:58pm

Hi delly.

Just reading on the problem you had with your garden back in 2006. Well done to you.
I have a similiar problem and I would be grateful if I could get a look at the pics of your garden before, during and after as they don't seem to be there at the moment. Could you put them back so I can get a look at them or does anyone have them to send to me to hevikend@hotmail.com. That way I could see exactly what you did because as thet say "a picture paints a thousand words".
After all the bad weather we had here my back garden is in a terrible state and needs drainage big time, hence my name "wetgarden" - brilliant I know!
Anyway I would be grateful if you could help me out with this or indeed any member.

Thanks,
Wetgarden:(

Garden Drainage: Start to finish

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