I didn`t know where to put this but hopefully some of the more senior members will be able to help :wink: I was wondering what the generally used design was for a 1960`s or 1970`s soakaway? The reason for this strange question is i think i may have come across one in the garden, i haven`t found the soakaway pit yet but have found 3 sections of clay pipe buried around 2ft deep. My first thought was ..doh! a sewer pipe but on lifting the manhole cover at the bottom of the garden i discovered no pipe going in that direction. The most striking thing about the clay pipes is they don`t butt tightly together, they have a full inch worth of gap in the two joints i`ve found so far..no mastic or anything just plain ended orange clay pipe. I figure the gap was there to allow water into the pipes? So the question is..does this sound like it may be part of a drainage system design circa 60`s or 70`s, i presumed perforated plastic drainage pipe wasn`t about back then? Many Thanks here`s a pic
Hi Hex, we have a very similar thing in our garden, and my first thought was "SEWER!!!!" when I hit it with the spade!! s00k But yes, that was the conclusion we came to as well. We have taken advantage of it and dug a drainage channel over the top, filled with a large amount of pea gravel. result - no waterlogging! :thmb:
"i presumed perforated plastic drainage pipe wasn`t about back then?" I first used perforated drainage pipe in maybe the late '70s, or might have been early '80s and silly-little-clay-pipes in the 60s They ought to touch though - but they would not have had any seal between them. Sometimes they mole'd them in - pulled a bullet shared though through the ground and then pushed the pipes in from one end - push in, place another pipe behind, push again. I would expect the soakaway to be just a big hole in the ground fully of builders broken brick-bats or large stones ...
Thanks for the replies Guys, If you look at the pic carefully you`ll notice the pipe end are 1/2" out of alignment too. i hit a load of rubble previously but put it down to hardcore for the path foundation..i thought it went a bit deep for just a few slabs :wink:
They look like land drains to me. We used to lay them before the 70s (when perforated plastic came in) on my Dad's farm which was heavy clay soil. Mostly they were laid by contractors, who came in with a wacking great machine to cut the trench, then the clay pipes were dropped in by hand. The depth was below what a plough would reach down to, so a couple of feet at a minimum, but the falls had to be right to get the fields to drain properly - so toward the drain end they would get much deeper. The clay pipes are unglazed so that they absorb water along with the gaps. The idea on clay soil was that the mole Kristen describes makes a nice puddled clay bore along which the water runs, the clay pipes really just stop the earth falling back in. The water usually drains into a ditch, so maybe if you are on old farm land you won't find a soak-away.
"If you look at the pic carefully you`ll notice the pipe end are 1/2" out of alignment too" They may have moved - they were prone to doing that. Heave from tree roots, all sorts.
They only had a limited life - say 15 to 20 years, then it all had to be done again - hence they weren't laid with much care either.
Thanks for the reply John. I think they must have dug the trench by hand to get this in, there`s no access for any major machinery, getting the wheelie bin around the back of the house is a tight squeeze. The problem is this pesky pipe is right in the way of my trench which needs to be 2ft deeper :wink: I`m not on farmland, the garden slopes from right to left and also top to bottom as i`m on a hill. I haven`t found either end of the pipe so far so i`m not sure where it goes.
