Plain-English guides to percolation testing, soakaways and site drainage.
Guides
Plain-English answers to the questions we get asked most often - what the tests are for, when you need one, what drives the cost, and what happens when the ground will not take water.
The short answer, in England, is at least 5 m. Approved Document H of the Building Regulations says soakaways and other infiltration devices should not be built within 5 m of a building or road. A drainage field for a…
It is a fair question. A percolation test is, at heart, a hole in the ground filled with water and timed as it drains. So why pay someone to do it? The short answer is that you can dig a…
If your property isn’t connected to a mains sewer, your septic tank or treatment plant is covered by the Environment Agency’s general binding rules. Most people only discover them when they sell a house, extend one, or apply for planning…
People use four or five different names for what is often the same job, and one genuine distinction gets lost in the middle of it. Here is the plain version. The ones that mean the same thing Porosity test, percolation…
A soakaway is a hole in the ground, filled with something that holds water in the gaps (crates, or clean stone) that takes rainwater from a roof or a hard surface and lets it soak away into the surrounding soil…
Short answer: if you are putting water into the ground rather than into a sewer, somebody is going to want to know how fast the ground takes it. Here is how to tell whether that applies to you. You almost…
The short answer: there’s no single price, because no two sites need the same work. The cost of a percolation test depends mainly on: Below is how each one affects the price, so you can judge whether a quote is…
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