Soakaways in Manchester

Soakaways in Manchester: what the price includes

• 01
  Percolation test first, always

  BRE Digest 365 sets the method: dig the trial pit, fill it three times, time the drop. It tells you whether a soakaway will work here at all and how big it has to be. Anyone quoting without one is guessing, and on clay they are usually guessing wrong.

• 02
  Sized to the roof, not to the hole

  The volume is calculated from the area draining into it and the measured infiltration rate. Undersized soakaways do not fail immediately, they fail in the first serious storm, which is the worst possible time to discover it.

• 03
  Crates or rubble, and why it matters

  Modular crates give roughly 95% void against about 30% for rubble, so they do the same job in a third of the excavation. Wrapped in geotextile, they also stay clear far longer. On a small London garden that difference decides whether the job is possible.

• 04
  Distance from the building

  Five metres minimum from any structure under Approved Document H, and further on shrinkable clay. Too close and you are irrigating your own foundations, which is the cause behind a good share of the "mystery damp" we get asked about.

• 05
  Unblocking an existing one

  Most failed soakaways are not broken, they are silted. Jetting the inlet, excavating the inspection point and flushing the media brings a lot of them back for a fraction of a replacement, and we will always test that before quoting a new one.

Local conditions we work around

Manchester drainage is Victorian industrial infrastructure serving housing built for mill workers, and the pattern shows. Terraces frequently share rear drainage runs, so a blockage is often the neighbour's rather than yours and the first job is establishing whose it is before anyone gets a bill. The original salt-glazed clay is still in the ground across much of the city, which means displaced joints and root intrusion, and the hillside districts add long shallow runs that silt up.

Covered across Greater Manchester

Same published rate card and the same twelve-month workmanship guarantee everywhere below, there is no postcode loading. Each area has its own page with an arrival time taken from our job records rather than chosen for a website.

Soakaways in Manchester, your questions