garden under water - Help

This morning at 6am I was struggling to get about 6ins of water away from the back door and out of the porch, It was like the second coming of Noah.
I need some advice . When my husband designed our back garden he laid some of the smaller paving slabs outside the back porch and built a small retaining wall as our garden is on two levels. When he laid the slabs we had problems as we are on heavy clay consequently with the lack of water and then too much water the slabs have moved and they are sloping towards the porch,as a consequence when it rains it is like paddling through a stream out of the back door and also the porch floor has now got so wet that it has gone through (It is wood) How do I relay the slabs and would I have to wait until the weather got better
Also any ideas on drainage.We do not have a single open drain in the garden.Our downpipe from the roof guttering goes directly into the ground
I shall be doing this on my own as Hubby suffered a stroke last Monday and I do not want him stressing when he comes home although sounds as though that might be a while yet.Can't afford to pay anyone to do it for me so any hints and ideas gratefully accepted

 

ghollum I am so very sorry to hear about your husbands stroke do hope he recovers soon, take care, i dont know about water problem you are experiencing hopefully other members can suggest something to relieve you stressing about this.

 

Hi Rosa, thank you.I know that if we are still puddled when he comes home he will kill himself trying to get it sorted.. he's that kind of bloke.
Mind you I am at work wondering if I will have a house to go home to,talk about deluge.The drain covers in the road are lifting around here with all the water just really need someone with a bit of nonce who can give me a few tips and hopefully if I'm not reduced to singing Ol Man River whilst rowing to the garage I might be able to get something done about it at the weekend.
Ghollum

 

well lets hope that someone here can save the day before your husband gets home

 

Ho Ghollum

Don't speak to me about sloping gardens and solid clay!!!!!! We are just comming to the end of 4 months of MAJOR re-landscaping because of months of standing water outside our back.....

There is very little you can do on a small scale unfortunately. But it may be an idea to get a water butt and drain the water off the roof into there - that should stop much of the water depositing itself straight outside your back door.

The other solution is to re-do the patio. We have had this done - sloping away from the house, into a soak-away - but this needs to be about 5m from the house. As our clay,(as the builder found out) is over 14 feet deep, we had to abandon the soak-away, and relay the whole of the back, side and front of the house making a run-off so the water came down from the garden and out to the front.

The other option, of course, and a whole lot cheaper, would be to run the down pipe from your roof into your open drain - but that is against all building regulations, etc.....

 

Hi Honey Bee
This is a real tale of woe... :eek: I have a water butt that is collecting water from the roof, trouble is it is collecting it quicker than I can get rid of it.I had to empty it with a watering can this morning and take it all up the back of the garden to get rid of it so actually the butt is adding to my problems & if it overflows while I am at work well don't want to think about it really.Can't put a soak away in if it needs to be 5 ms from house as we have a small retaining wall approx 3ft from porch door and then there are 2 steps up to the rest of the garden also we are on REAL clay here (we once dug a fish pond and just "puddled" the clay and it lasted years without leaking).The down pipe from our roof goes directly into the ground and that is inside the porch .. if we had a normal type drain with a grid on the top it wouldn't be so bad but there is nowhere we can drain this water to, the house is lower than the garden by about 3ft.

 

hmmmmm - we could be neighbours!!!!!

 

Mmmmm Its not you sweeping your water into my garden is it??????

 

Hi Honey bee, so sorry to hear about your husband i hope he makes a speedy recovery.
There has been some good advice for you here, i can't suggest how to get rid of the water, but at the bottom of our garden near the garage the ground is concreted and it didn't look very nice, also the ground slops a little there, and we get puddles when it rains so i bought some gravel and covered the area, now it looks much better and would you believe it, i can't see any puddles when it rains now. So perhaps you could lay some gravel and see if this helps.

 

Hi Ghollum,
Sorry to hear about your problem. There are no quick fixes and water butts are no solution. You might see some slight improvement if you can raise the paving slabs yourself by packing sand under them so that they face away from the house. Can you get help from friends or relatives?

Because of your husband's health, you mght be able to get help from a local community group. Your Citizens Advice Bureau might be able to give you some contacts. You probably don't like seeking help, but your husband's condition probably means that you should.

 

Second that, Hornbeam. Hope the problem has already been solved - looks like the original question got missed, unfortunately :(

 

Sorry to hear of your problems Ghollum. The only temporary thing I can think of (til you can get some expert help in) is making an attachment with a hose to the tap of the waterbutt and feeding it round to your kitchen outside drain. When it rains (or your out) make the connection and turn the tap on the waterbutt on. It should drain out faster than it fills. Yes its a waste of water, but it may stop any flooding til you get things sorted.

 

Ghollum as an interim measure dig a hole were the water is deepest take up a slab if necessary get your self a sump pump (most of these have a level control that switches them off when the level falls) put the outlet to a drain on the road (or in next doors garden if you don't like the neighbours) this should get the level down when the weather picks up think about relaying those flags away from the house as suggested above dig the clay out and lay them on a good ballast