Depth of clay in Marple

[ringi]

I am trying to find out if there is any chance that a soak away would work in our garden; we live in Rose Hill, SK6 6JG very close to Marple Hall School.     

When I bug a 3 foot trench for replacement water pipe; I did a test and practically no water drained overnight.  We have about a foot of top soil then solid clay at least down to 3 foot.

Does anyone have any ideal who deep the clay goes?

[tonyjones]

If I were you I would stop digging.

Some of the clay in this area is well over 100 feet thick !

[jimblob]

Rose Hill used to be the home of a very large brickworks... I live there and our entire house is built with RoseHill stamped bricks.... even they tho they banged out many a brick, I doubt they used up all the clay in teh area in the process. I'd definately stop digging. 

[Stockport Classic Bus]

We dug trenches....soakaways....got a gardener in....did some ourselves....all hopeless. The water sat happily on top of the 'drained' lawn!

So eventually I thought - what the hell! - hire a mini digger and dig the whole lot up.

So, over a fantastic weekend, me and my 8 year old son took turns in digging out a metre of clay from all of our lawn, dumping it into a skip, and then backfilling the whole area with tons of limestone gravel, topsoil and sand. In the evenings I continued the work with a glass of real ale in the cab.

Best fun we ever had. It cost me 3 days' mini digger hire, a couple of skips full of gravel and soil, a crate of ales and some turf. I replaced 50 square metres of lawn.

And it has been dry as a bone since then!!

[ringi]

Thanks, very useful replay,

Do you know where the water went once it got to the bottom of your gravel?

Where did you get skips filled with gravel?

How did you get the clay from the digger into the skip, or could you put the skip close enough to reach the digger.
I would have expected 50 square metres 1 metre deep to take about 10 skips – am I missing something?

(I am thinking of doing the same with 2 flower beds, but using a “man and digger” as they are next to our house wall and only going down 40cm due to foundation depth. – There is other work for the digger at the same time.)

We dug trenches....soakaways....got a gardener in....did some ourselves....all hopeless. The water sat happily on top of the 'drained' lawn!

So eventually I thought - what the hell! - hire a mini digger and dig the whole lot up.

So, over a fantastic weekend, me and my 8 year old son took turns in digging out a metre of clay from all of our lawn, dumping it into a skip, and then backfilling the whole area with tons of limestone gravel, topsoil and sand. In the evenings I continued the work with a glass of real ale in the cab.

Best fun we ever had. It cost me 3 days' mini digger hire, a couple of skips full of gravel and soil, a crate of ales and some turf. I replaced 50 square metres of lawn.

And it has been dry as a bone since then!!

[Stockport Classic Bus]

We got the skips from Offerton Sand and Gravel, who helpfully brought the gravel in the skips and took the clay away in the same skips!!

We filled 4 skips...not all areas were dug to 1m!! Only the worst areas.

The minidigger was from Wright Hire in Hawk Green.

To get the clay into the skips we used wheelbarrows, planks and volunteers bribed with beers!

Where the water goes....I imagine it dribbles down the line of the water table into other areas of the land. It certainly hasn't surfaced anywhere else that I can see!! As we re-lawned the area, I imagine a fair bit of rainfall waters the lawn and its subsoil, the rest filters through the gravel and seeps generally away.

Hiring your own digger is much more fun....they are easy to use.

[Bluezorro]

Have dug out a 1mx1mx1m soakaway off bowden lane to receive the run off from some flags and that has been working ok

[ringi]

Have dug out a 1mx1mx1m soakaway off bowden lane to receive the run off from some flags and that has been working ok

Thanks,

Was it still solid clay at the bottom?

How large is the area of your flags?