Rainwater Drains full of stones ....

Fingers Mcginty

Howdy folks, A lot of our drains aren't fulfilling their purpose. The drains get full of water during heavy rain. I had the uneviable task of trying to unblock recently and found a lot of stones in the traps. Tried my best to scoop them out by hand. The walls at the side of the house are dashed so I'm only guessing at some stage the ground was power washed and a lot of the stones ended up in the drains. If the mesh covers were a little finer I don't think I'd have this problem

1)What's the best way to get the stones out of the traps?
2)can you get fine mesh covers at all to preevent this happening again?

Thanks

K.Flyer

The easiest way I found for removing stones, pebbles and debris from gully traps is by using a wet-vac machine which you can hire quite cheaply for a few hours from a hire shop.
Use a small rod or something similar to loosen the debris and the vac will lift it all out nice and handy.
Afterwards you can cover the gully trap grill with some chicken wire (hardware shop) cut to size and held in place on the grill with a couple of small cable ties.

TopTec

I have problems with pine needles here. I use hessian or the plastic vegetable sacks which I cut into a small square slightly large than the gulley cover. Put this across and press the cover back on. The cover holds it and the sack or hessian stops the pine needles dropping through and blocking the trap.

Never had a problem with water getting through and it is easy to scoop off the build up of needles and leaves.

TT