UKC

Since moving to our present property about seven years ago we have been plagued, in winter, by a water logged lawn. The lawn is circa 25 feet square and the waterlogging is confined to a strip about seven or eight feet wide nearest the house. I suspect that this is due to a load of clay having been dumped in that area by the builders. The rest of the lawn seems to drain ok and digging does not reveal any clay.

I am considering some sort of soakaway but I do not want to have to dig big time.

A possible solution I have considered, because of the difficulty of digging through the clay is to use an auger to sink a number of holes through the clay and into the soil beneath. The plan is then to back fill using rubble or coarse gravel and then top it with top soil.

Has anyone had similar problems or know if this would work?

Thanks for any ideas

How deep or where are your gas, water, sewage, phone and electricity connections?

What are the foundations of your house? if the house is just sat on clay then suddenly changing the moisture content of the clay foundation will cause a lot of movement and problems.

The usual method for improving drainage in a lawn is to stab it with a fork, wiggle the fork around a bit to open up the holes and then rake in sharp sand.

Gethin's plan seems like a good mixture of effort and risk.  

You could lift some turf, dig down a bit to make a trench from the waterlogged area into a free draining area and either put in some gravel with a covering or a small porous pipe. Wouldn't need to be that deep or wide. On our allotment I put in 4 inch pipes and this shifts huge amounts of water (a whole hillside drained onto it). For smaller areas a few inches of gravel in a trench is enough generally.

That has already been attempted and proved to be like trying to drive a fork into concrete. I suspect that under the lawn is about a foot or more of clay(excavated before building) combined with builder's rubble. Your suggestion is a no no.

Nowhere near

I don't see any reason why your idea shouldn't work, if the rest of the lawn drains satisfactorily and water logging is only a localised problem during winter. It's very minimum work, disruption and cost so why not give it a go, you've nothing to loose. I'd avoid using rubble though, top soil will get washed into the big gaps and you'll eventually end up with dips in the lawn, 10mm pea gravel would probably work best as water only needs too seep away. Don't over do it or it might dry out to quickly in summer, one hole per square metre/yard would probably be a good place to start.

Thanks. The rubble vs pea gravel argument seems logical. I'm not too sure how far down the clay goes but the waste from the auger should give me an idea. I was then planning to go another foot.

I had a similar problem (moss ridden, soaking lawn on top of clay) and a similar solution. I lifted the turf then hired a hand held , petrol driven 6 inch post hole maker (I’m sure it’s got a proper name!) from a local builders merchants for about £40. I then drilled out vertical  holes in the clay as deep as I could every 18”-2ft. I ended up with about 100 holes across the area. I then put a length of the plastic drainage pipes (the ones with the holes in them) into each hole and filled it with gravel/stones. I put a piece of the anti weed sheeting over the area then a layer of sharp sand, then top soil on top and returfed it. Took me about 3 days to do but the result is brilliant. Total cost was about £100 for a lawn about 80 sq m. 

I have a similar problem and did what hang_about describes - dug a trench and put in some porous plastic pipe. If you do this (whether you use pipe vertically or horizontally) put a "geotextile sock" over the pipe, as it stops fine particles being washed into the pipe and eventually blocking it. 

One length of pipe generally drains an area 2m either side of it. 

Think yourself lucky. In my back garden the builders compacted layer occupied the entire flipping garden. Took a substantial amount of work!

Paul

You might struggle to hand drive an auger into that.

Sounds like a good idea and something I should probably do. I wasn't sure about the weed sheeting though, if it stops weeds coming up, doesn't it stop grass roots going down?

Doesn’t seem to. My thinking was to stop the sand and soil going down into the piping and clogging them up. There’s probably 2 inches of sand and 2 of soil on top. The grass seems happy 4 years on.

OK got you. I'm tempted to give it a go on a small area, although whether I get round to it is a different matter. The moss patches are luminous at the moment! 

A very common misunderstanding of weed sheeting. It works by preventing light getting to the soil below, stopping seeds underneath it from germinating. Any seeds that land on top of it, given the right conditions, will germinate and the roots will grow down through the fabric.  Vigorous perennial weeds will often force their way up through a fabric if not removed first.  

Yup - that's what the buttercup has done on my allotment!

I had a similar issue with lawn drainage. I dug a massive hole in the clay about 6 foot deep and some drainage channels into the hole from all 4 sides and then filled in with rocks course gravel and then top soil. That sorted the problem out!

Happy digging.

If you can't get a fork in past the rubble I think you'll struggle with a screw auger.

It's not just surface water running off a patio or down the house wall if it's the one facing the prevailing winter wind is it?

jk