Waterlogged Front Garden Drainage and wastage systems and plumbing help, advice and answers

[perdy5]

We purchased a new house 12 months ago and have drainage problems with the front garden. The lawn slopes down towards the house and after rainfall the bottom half of the lawn closest to the front wall of the house is waterlogged and it never dries out.

The builder has admitted they are responsible for fixing the problem but their proposed solution of a French Drain worries me. I thought these drains were only temporary and clogged up after a while. Also, the lawn is surrounded on two sides by driveways, and the house and pavement on the other two sides so there is nowhere for the water to soak away.

Am I right to be concerned about the proposed solution and what would you say is the best way to tackle this problem?

I hope you can help.

[thedoctor]

A french drain is good if it can get down to a layer of ground which will allow the water to drain permanantly but of course you are not going to know this until its tried. Its often better to put a gulley in the french drain to collect all the water and drain it, via a pipe running from the gulley, back down the garden, to a soakaway or nearby surface water drain.

[briansmith59]

We have bought a 3 year old mid terraced house. The back garden is north facing and slopes gently towards the house. The garden gets waterlogged with water sometimes standing at the rear of the house. We are thinking of putting french drains and a soakaway but we are on clay soil. The problem is really that being mid terrace there is no way of taking the water out passed the house, but i am not sure a soak away will do much in the clay.
Any ideas?
Many thanks
Brian

[JNash]

I believe I have a similar problem to both Perdy and Brian, in my case the rainwater would appear to be running off of a compacted lawn from my neighbours house (elevated from my own) and in heavy rain water acumulates under my front window to a depth of about 15mm and thereafter runs through a shared access between our houses. I did add a soakaway onto the front garden but the problem persists, possibly due to the high amount of clay in the soil. They are now building a large deck to the rear of our properties and I am concerned that this will accentuate the problem of poor drainage as there is no major drain for the excess water to run into and they have no drain on their property (they have buiilt an extension over the original).
Is it legal for me to build a structure to prevent the water running from their property onto mine? As I feel I have taken steps to alleviate the problem as best as I could already without this further potential problem of the decking to contend with.

Thanks in advance.