First refusal
I had a grocery delivery yesterday.
Normally I have the garage door open so he can trot in with his crates of whiskey groceries straight through to the kitchen and dump them on the table.
Not so yesterday.
I had everything ready when he arrived but he refused to come in. He stood there outside the open gate and wouldn’t come in any further.
Frankly, I couldn’t blame him. You see, we have had quite a drop of rain lately and what happens is that the water all flows down the length of the lane picking up muck on the way. It then flows in my gate and floods the front driveway. As a result, there is now a very large area of very sticky and messy mud inside my gate, and anyone who wants to enter has to wade through this shit.
So I nipped back indoors and put on some boots. I then had to collect the crates of whiskey groceries from the lane and wade back to the kitchen. After the delivery was finished I then had to mop down the kitchen floor as there was mud everywhere.
So herein lies my problem. I don’t know what to do about this marshland that periodically cuts off entry to the Manor. How many other visitors have decided a visit to Grandad isn’t worth the effort?
To stop the water flowing in I would have to build a dam across the lane but I imagine the neighbours might have something to say about that? I can cross that off my list of solutions.
I could build some kind of drain or channel or something inside the gate to let the water flow into the North Wood, but that would just fill up with silt and mud within days. That would be a very temporary solution and I don’t fancy digging a new trench after every rainfall. Anyway, driving out across the trench would collapse it anyway.
So I am stuck with my muddy isolation. As a temporary measure I’m thinking of raising the level of the entrance using gravel. I don’t know how long that would last.
More hard work……
Sounds like a beginnings of decent moat, perhaps you could construct a draw bridge.
Add a few sharks?
Quite a while I imagine, if you used edging stones across the drive. About a 1 inch step should encourage the flood to run straight past and the car would have no problem with it. You can then finish off the drive however you like – gravel, block paving, slabs etc. This is how I solved much the same problem, though I just got a lake rather than mud, but I have no gates or fence, the whole of the front of the house is open, with space for 2 cars side by side. My only problem now is leaves in autumn – if there's any wind it tends to blow them off 2 trees further down the street and into my drive. We were knee deep last year and when I cleared them up I filled 2 wheelie bins and a couple of black bags.
A step of somesort would appear to be the answer. The trick is fiding something porous that wil take the weight of a car. One way or another, it can wait until it's a bit warmer out.
Years back I had a similar issue of standing water in 2 areas where guttering caused the problem. I was much younger and dug the trench, about 1.5 mtrs deep, 2 long and 1 wide. Filled it with stones and gravel with a tight mesh net about 6 inches from the top, then topsoil in the one in the garden and just gravel in the other.
They're still working after more than 20 years.
I wouldn't fuss with a container structure, just rely on the fact the water has a vastly increased area to soak into.
Now I'd hire a small back hoe (and operator) to dig the trench and your local builder supply outfit for the gravel. They'll supply the correct quantity – rough cheap gravel – based on cubic area.
One's located under a driveway and my buggy serves to keep it nice and compressed. The other 's in a corner of my garden and I grow vegetables just fine.
https://www.diydoctor.org.uk/projects/soakaway-water-drainage-system.htm
How about a raised wooden walkway like they have in parts of venice and wandering around the volcanic mudpools and geysers in New Zealand.
That would work. I'd have to buy a second car though to keep on the other side?
What about a speed bump across the end of the driveway to divert the water past it or away to one side?
I was about to reply that that was part of the plan, but I just had another idea – cut a drainage channel above the gate so it just flows into the hedge?!
Duck-board or stepping stones.
Stepping stones sounds good. I might put something down as a temporary measure until everything dries up a bit.