Hi chaps,

We’ve moved into a new build in January, the biggest issue we have is that the garden is just a pile a mud and very waterlogged. The water doesn’t drain and just sits on the soil.

We’ve been promised to have field drains installed, and then retracted as it’s not company policy anymore. So we’ve been now promised rotavating and filling with a sand mix. My missus is a soil scientist, and works for a water company and strongly believes this will not work to fix the issues. She has advised them that drains are required.

If we then install turf, and we have drainage issues, then its now our problem to fix. If we had asked the builders to install the turf, then they’re responsible for fixing the drainage after it goes in. None of that was told to us when we decided to not get the builders to turf the garden.

Our next door neighbours moved in 4 weeks after us, and got the builders to install the turf. Their garden has the same problem. They are now having their garden rotavated and new material installed.

Our garden has nothing being done to it.

So, we’re now 3 months in the house, and have no way to get turf in the garden. Our neighbours have been in 2 months, and are now being sorted.

Head office are ignoring us and haven’t given a timeline at all.

What are our options? Do we have any routes to go down?

Cheers

Ricks

Do you have a retainer only the house? If yes, spend it on the drainage.

What do you mean by a retainer? We’ve bought the house and have been moved in for 3 months.

dirty protest in the show home/office

A retainer is where you hold back say 5%, or £5k, of the purchase price for a fixed period, say 12months.
It helps the builders get off their arse to fix stuff on the snagging list as if they don’t fix the outstanding jobs, they lose the money.

We made the mistake of not doing that when we bought a new build house 3 yrs ago
🙁

If the land drainage was in the original specification, surely they should honour that? Although if its heavy clay, I’m not sure land drains would be that effective. Also they block up fairly quickly and are useless after a while (speaking as someone with a floody patio and boggy lawn despite land drains)

Put drains in yourselves, then get it turfed.

Job done.

I reckon the reason they’re dragging their heels is because the garden is probably just an inch of soil covering all the waste building materials and rubble left over from when they built the house.

Wait a bit and see what nature does? Listen to Gardener’s question time? Gardens don’t just happen. Is a ready to go garden even included in the cost? Pre turfed would just cover the issues. Perfect opportunity to do it right first time.

On a more serious note, your soil just doesn’t look like topsoil, and underneath what they are calling topsoil is going to be completely churned up and compacted clay and soil from the building site. There’s just nothing for the surface water to drain through or to.

I’d be tempted to get the spade out and dig a test pit, avoiding power cables etc, to see what is down there.

I’d say a good foot needs to be removed, drainage put in, and some proper top soil though. Getting them to pay for it though…

You could probably have a cracking natural clay pond though!

In the mean time I’d be tempted to dig a drainage ditch or two down the slope towards the burn to get things drying out a bit in the top few inches of soil.

I would expect that what they are offering to do is over and above what is expected by NHBC etc as that would focus on the structure and finish. We had 2 years of snagging in our last house, then the garden flooded and I had to dig my own drains.

Lol.

We did dig down, and it was just water and clay. There’s no topsoil, what we argued for and got agreement to was digging out the top foot of material, putting in dry material and drainage, rotavating and then topsoil.

That was agreed to, and then overturned by head office.

People in the estate have had the builder install the turfing, and then they’ve had to pay for a local gardener to redo it as it was so poor. Which is why we didn’t want the builder doing it for us.

What I did expect is that what they left after building the house would be in a state where we could turf it.

What I did expect is that what they left after building the house would be in a state where we could turf it.

you can, just don’t expect it to ‘flourish’.

BTW, this is a drain 🙂

What I did expect is that what they left after building the house would be in a state where we could turf it.

You and everyone else that bought a new build……I know very few people that got it though. And have at one stage been on the side of putting the thin layer of soil on as directed by the site manager…..

Its luck of the draw what plot your on how much rubble you have under your garden as to how well it drains.

Good luck fighting the developer.

You could go the route of contacting the council / building control and see if you can get a copy of the original planning consent which should have details of what was specified / agreed with regard to the surface water drainage etc.

The original GIR should have flagged if the ground was suitable for soakaways etc and if surface drainage to main drains was required instead.

With regards to the topsoil depth depending on what the original CLEA assessment of the soils is this will dictate the minimum depth of clean cover (clean imported topsoil material) that is required and again should be specific as part of the planning consent.

However where this is minimal or non existent I do know of example where people have through environmental testing shown that the ground disturbance and material left from the construction phase is suitably contaminative that clean cover was subsequent required at the expense of the developer.

Building Control won’t have been involved with garden/land drains at all, only foul and rainwater from house.

One potential avenue is to find out if the rainwater goes to mains drainage or soakaway – if you have a soakaway in the rear garden that’s not working, that could be contributing to your issues.

Seems it comes down to your builder with these things. Mate at works new back garden looks like the Somme! (David Wilson homes) He’s having to fork out to get it all sorted, as the back garden (drainage, turf etc) wasn’t in the cost? His other neighbours are in the same boat too. Another bloke at work was left with a mud pit too (Taylor Wimpey).
My house and the rest of the estate all had the back gardens sorted (Redrow) and my other mates who live on a new estate opposite us are the same (Bovis).

this is why I will never buy a new build houses again, have the same issue, next door neighbour moved out after 2 years and multiple numbers of fixing their lawn (the builders cost) I just observed if it is really going to work as I have noticed when I build my shed and dug a feet out its all clay and rubble.. it really needs a drainage.

I guess as they are still needing to sell the rest of the houses they’ve not built yet if you all get together and get the local press interested it will be in the developers interest to resolve the problem.

failing that PUMP TRACK

“One potential avenue is to find out if the rainwater goes to mains drainage or soakaway…“

IIRC rainwater has to go to a soakaway, you’re not allowed to tie it into the mains drainage.

I reckon the reason they’re dragging their heels is because the garden is probably just an inch of soil covering all the waste building materials and rubble left over from when they built the house.

What Cougar said. My garden suffers the same problem and I’ve just got used to leaping the last four feet onto the patio.

IIRC rainwater has to go to a soakaway, you’re not allowed to tie it into the mains drainage.

That would be one big soakaway for an entire housing estate. Water attenuation is perhaps what you mean but yes where possible water is pushed back into the natural watercourse. Individual soakaways for say just the back of each property are possible but trial holes should be done, with as basic a test as fill up a hole and measure the time to drain away. Clay is your enemy and where as some of the above are slating the rubble content it can actually help depending on the amount of it as it’s basically what soakaways are filled with.
As for the op, your wife is right, blending sand in to the top layer of clay will work for a while but it will eventually fill up. I’ve got puddles on my clay based site that have had water in constantly for 3 months.

Keep on at them – don’t piss about. Developers are pros at doing as little as possible. Be the biggest pain in the arse you can be. They will relent in the end and should install land drainage if required. I’ve been a consultant designing land drainage for a developer post development. It won’t be a quick process tho. 3 months is a short time period for barratts when it comes to fixing stuff.

With regards to soakaways and that nonsense in the posts above. Of course you can put storm drainage in a pipe. Not all soils permit dealing with water at source. Building control do take notice of this and soakage testing to prove the soakage solution is valid is required. You will need to manage that water in the pipe tho so it doesn’t flood a third party. Again building control or the new flood authorities verify these designs. The issue your developer may have is if they are getting the sewers adopted by the water authority. The water authority won’t permit connection of groundwater to an adoptable sewer. Normally a developer will just do it anyway tho and not tell the authority as the alternatives are waaay to expensive.
Not that I’ve been involved in stuff like that….

Cheers for the info,

We have a light stone content in our dirt garden. They rotavated it a month ago, and within a day or so it was back to waterlogged.

We have a SUDS on site, which is where I’m assuming the drainage will push water to.

Take it you’re not referring to my post van Halen as I believe everything I said is accurate.

suds is wide ranging and covers pretty much any type of storm water drainage. the suds manual is a 1000page document covering everything from explainign anacronyms, designs for various methods of water storage, to the chemical composition of soils for treating water runoff and other random stuff. I`ve made it through bits…. its a beast.

much will depend on where in the world you are/the local topography and geology as well as the surrounding development, methods of draiange employed, size of patio and garden landscaping etc etc.

it may just be the combined shed/patio/pathway/binstore area is too big and the gardens too small to deal with the high intensity of water runoff and it needs a downpipe/drainage and managing. if its cut into the hillside it might be a spring. if you are at the bottom of a hill it could be overland runoff. there are a zillion factors.

It needs to be looked at in context by someone that knows what to look for. Keep on at your developer. they will (should) eventually organise this it you are enough of a pain. but you will need to be a pain.

ps why would you buy a house without a grassed garden? is it *that* much cheaper?

Just bite the bullet now. Get them to lay a few ton of hard core and tell them to bugger off.

We played the ‘lawn game’ for about 10yrs. 3 new lawns. Additives being put on it all the time. Rotivators, extra drains etc etc. Always ended in a crappy lawn i couldnt use for 75% of the year unless it was baking hot.

After 10 yrs i bit the bullet. Hard core laid, a couple of weeks of theraputic walking around with a waker plate. Billiard flat. Layer of sand and then laid fake grasss like it was a roll of carpet. Even has extra brown bits in it for real looks 🙂

I put a slight bias towards the house and put one of them driveway soakaway pipe things to take any excess water away into a nice deep soackaway.

When it rains it never ever puddles. My kids ride their bikes on it, they do gymnastic on it, they play football on it. When the sun comes out it even heats up for them.

Costs a bit but in the end i worked out i spent the same amount trying to get a decent lawn over the 10yrs.

My wife says that if we ever move house it will be the first thing we change to the new house.