Water is a driveway & patio’s worst enemy, so getting the drainage right is one of the most important factors in ensuring a good-looking, long-lived Installation. It’s worth considering the Ecological Aspect Of Drainage, too.

To help keep local flooding at bay, water should have a path that ideally takes it to the substrate underneath or garden around the drive/patio, rather than shooting straight off the top into the storm drains or sewage system.

Drainage for all hard-standing installations needs to deal with two main issues: making sure the surface water goes somewhere where it can drain slowly into the ground; and drainage beneath the top surface. To deal with surface water the hard-standing installation needs to have a gradient, even if the land it is on is flat and level. In fact, it’s likely to have two gradients, one from the beginning to the end, known as the end-fall, and one across the drive, known as the cross-fall.

Even if the top surface is porous, the rain needs to be directed away from the top of the blocks quickly otherwise Algae, moss and weeds Can Get A Foothold, and in freezing conditions, the drive will become slippery and hazardous.

That’s why on all of our projects we install aco channel drains to prevent any water from staying on the surface not to forget we will install recessed manhole covered on all of the inspection champers to keep the area looking neat and tidy however not in all cases is there anywhere to connect the drainage channels to that’s where the option of a soakaway comes in.

A soakaway is an underground structure that disposes of unwanted water, most commonly surface runoff and stormwater and in some cases grey-water. It is a covered, porous-walled chamber that allows water to slowly soak into the ground, dissipating into the groundwater.