In March 2018, local resident Mr M Turley contacted us for help on flooding at his residential property in Ashleworth, Gloucestershire.

Mr M Turley and family purchased their home in March 2018 just before a period of heavy rain. During this heavy rain event it was noticed that the surface water was pooling on the drive and resulted in approximately 2” of flood water inside the garage. Upon inspection Mr Turley noted that the drainage from the gully nearby was in poor condition and discovered that the original clay pipe leading away from the gully had collapsed, needing replacement. Through consulting the drainage search he noted that the gully led to a soakaway located in the front garden. During excavation the soakaway was found to be just 2ft away from the house and ended with a small rubble pit no more than 1ft square – not the soakaway identified on the plan.

“No wonder the rain wasn’t going anywhere… I had already planned to replace the damaged pipework, but it looked like I would now need to dig a soakaway too! I knew of a local company that manufactured a lightweight drainage system – Polybed, so I contacted them and decided it was clearly going to save me time and hassle…” – M Turley

The original drainage plan indicated approximately 7 meters of drainage leading to a soakaway, so the plan was now to replicate this in Polybed. The team at Forest Group recommended 4” OSMA for easy connection to a new gully with push fit connectors. The soakaway was recommended to be infilled using 9 bundles of lightweight geosynthetic aggregate – Polyagg, in a 3×3 configuration providing a 2.4m3 soakaway as per the original design.

Due to the pre-lagged form of Polybed, there was no need to purchase additional aggregate and no secondary operation of bedding and surround. Using a mini digger, it was possible to complete the project within 1 day. The total excavation time was about 2 hours, it took about half an hour to lay and connect the products, and about 1 hour more to backfill the new system.

Mr Turley was very impressed with the easy to use, lightweight products saying; “…I couldn’t believe how quickly the system went together. A job that was going to take me a while longer barrowing gravel, was completed neatly in just a fraction of the time.”

Another happy customer converted to the ease, time & cost savings of Polybed! – Thank you Mr Turley.