What is a soakaway for surface water?
What is a soakaway for surface water?
Soakaways are a traditional way of disposing of surface water from buildings remote from a suitable public sewer or watercourse. Soakaways are generally formed from square or circular pits, filled with rubble or lined with dry jointed masonry or perforated concrete ring units.
What water can go into a soakaway?
Soakaways are generally used for areas which have a draining area less than 100sqm, although soakaways can be used for any draining area, as long as the geological conditions are suitable to ensure the soakaway can drain to half-empty within 24 hours.
How deep should a rainwater soakaway be?
The depth depends upon the location – if it’s under the garden or patio etc. it only needs to be 1310mm deep, but if its under your driveway it should be 1510mm deep to allow for a little more top fill. If you don’t want to dig that deep, check out our shallow dig soakaway options.
Can sink water go into a soakaway?
Quite apart from Buildings Regulations issues, if you’ve really got dishwasher, washing machine and kitchen sink all draining into a soakaway, you’ll probably find sooner rather than later that the output from the washing machine and dishwasher, combined with the output from the kitchen sink rapidly choke the soakaway.
How do I know if I have surface water drainage?
How Do I Know Where My Surface Water Drains To? If your property is connected to a nearby sewage system, which most properties are, you can inspect surface water drainage during rainfall or by running a water hose on your property and watching where the surface water drains to.
How do you tell if a drain is a soakaway?
If you’re wondering ‘how can I tell if I have a soakaway? ‘, simply follow the rainwater pipes down from the side of your house into your garden. If they lead to a slightly lowered area where your lawn dips, there’s a chance you have a soakaway installed.
How do I know if my drain is a soakaway?
What does a rainwater soakaway look like?
They look like a series of perforated pipes laid in trenches in an area of land around your property, usually your garden or a field. The area around these pipes will then be covered over, usually with stones or gravel and turf, with the treated foul water being discharged into this land.
How do you make a rainwater soakaway?
To construct a basic stand alone soak away or one to use as a dispersal point for a French drain system where the water will gradually seep away into the surrounding soil. Dig a large hole in the ground, line the sides with heavy-duty landscaping fabric, to keep the earth from over time clogging up the gravel.
Is Chalk good for soakaways?
Permeable sub-soils such as sands, sandy loams and the like, along with permeable bedrock types, such as limestone, sandstone or chalk, are usually good news for soakaways, whereas hard, igneous rocks, such as granites and basalts, and heavy, claggy soils may mean a soakaway is not going to be feasible.
How far must a soakaway be from a house?
five metres
2 – How Far Away From the House Must it be Located? The regulations state that a rainwater soakaway must be located at least five metres from the wall of a building and at least two and a half metres from a boundary.
Is GREY water drinkable?
Most greywater is easier to treat and recycle than sewage because of lower levels of contaminants. Recycled greywater of this kind is never safe to drink, but a number of treatment steps can be used to provide water for washing or flushing toilets.
What do you need to know about a soakaway?
A soakaway must have capacity to store immediate run-off from roofs and hard surfaces and the water must then be able to disperse into the surrounding soil quickly enough for the soakaway to be able to cope with the next storm. Soakaways are probably the most common form of surface water disposal and are usually suitable for areas less than 100m².
How is runoff treated in a soakaway system?
The size of the device and the bulk density of any fill material will govern storage capacity. Runoff is treated in different ways by a soakaway. These include: biochemical reactions involving micro-organisms growing on the fill or in the soil.
Can a geocellular unit be substituted for a soakaway?
The supporting structure and backfill can be substituted by modular or geocellular units. Soakaways provide stormwater attenuation, stormwater treatment and groundwater recharge. Not suitable for locations where infiltration water may put structural foundations at risk, or where infiltrating water may adversely affect existing drainage patterns
Do you need pre treatment for a soakaway?
Pre-treatment may be required before polluted runoff is allowed into a soakaway. Soakaways are easy to integrate into a site, but they offer very little in the way of amenity or biodiversity value as they should be completely underground and water should not appear on the surface.