"Andy Coleman" wrote in message
om...
Hi,

My back garden is approximately 60' x 25' and slopes from front to
back and slighly from left to right. The house is in North London and
as is typical for the area the soil has a clay consistency resulting
in drainage problems.

Someone has advised me that I should dig a hole about 2mx1m by 1m deep
in the lowest point of the garden (which is the bottom right) and fill
it with bricks stones etc. Is this actualy a good option?

A soakaway has to be at least 5m from any building or structure. If you can
manage that, a lot will depend on where the water table is. The idea is that
the soakway is a large hole that will take a lot of water quickly and allow
it to soak into the ground over time. If the water table is so high that the
hole starts off nearly full of water, it will not do a lot of good. The
easist way to check the water table height is to dig a deep hole and then to
see if it fills up, even without rain. If it does, the water level it
settles to will show you where the water table is. If a 1m deep hole stays
dry, then a sokaway ought to work well.

.....
One reference I saw on Google seemed to indicate that the rubble
should be clean which I took to mean it should not have loads of
cement.

It means it should not have lots of dust and small rubbish in it, which can
clog the gaps between the rubble and make the soakaway less effective. For
the same reason, a good soakway will be surrounded with either graded gravel
or one of the modern membranes, to stop soil washing into the gaps.

Last years project was to tear down our old patio and build a
new one so I have a lot of rubble left over from the old demolished
patio can I use this?

Bricks work better than concrete, because bricks are porous and a full-sized
brick can hold a pint of water. However, concrete will work.

Colin Bignell