Saturday 11 October 2014

More Drainage

The large rock that had slipped down the hillside, from its precarious position after the original excavation work and ended up all but touching the rear wall of the house, was successfully dragged out of the way (see earlier post) over the summer. The work to complete the around house drain could therefore now be undertaken .

As before this entailed laying a large drainpipe around the remaining sections of the house drilling holes in its upper half to collect and drain away for storage or controlled irrigation the water that would otherwise build up against the back wall over the rainy months thus relieving the pressure against the wall.

From the mid point of the rear wall the two effective halves of this drain were constructed so as to slope gently downwards  along the north and west walls and the north and east walls so that the excess water would readily drain out and be collected at the south west and south east corners respectively. In addition a drain in the light well was constructed to run any water collecting there into the eastern half of the complete around house drain.

Once the drilled pipes were in place they were again wrapped in a fine cloth like material to act as a fine filter and then covered in gravel to act as a coarser filter. Rocks of increasing sizes were then carefully placed upon the gravel before finally back filling with the natural mix of rock and soil.

Drainpipe in place, wrapped in "cloth" awaiting gravel filter.

Moving the sacks of gravel.

Installing the gravel filter bed over the drainpipe.

In the hard to reach places have to resort to the manual methods!!
 
Last section of drainpipe on west wall in place.