Cumbria gets a lot of rain, and much of the ground round here is clay that refuses to let any of it through. If your lawn squelches from October to April, water pools against the house, or the bottom of the garden has quietly become a pond, that is a solvable problem — but only if it is diagnosed properly first.
PHOTO TO ADD: A trench with perforated land drain and clean stone before backfill — this photo does more to explain the job than any amount of text. (delete this note once the image is in)
What we install
- Land drainage — perforated pipe in a stone-filled trench, laid to a fall, to dry out waterlogged lawns and paddocks
- Soakaways — sized from a percolation test, using crates or clean stone
- French drains — intercepting water running down a slope towards a building
- Channel and linear drainage — across driveways, thresholds and garage entrances
- Surface water connections — downpipes, gullies and inspection chambers
- Foul drainage — runs, chambers and connections as part of groundworks
- Pumped systems — where there is genuinely nowhere for gravity to take it
Diagnosis before digging
Nearly every wet garden we look at has one of four causes: water arriving from higher ground, water with nowhere to go because of clay, a failed or blocked existing drain, or a level problem sending water towards the house instead of away from it. They need completely different solutions, and installing the wrong one is expensive and useless.
So we come and look at it, ideally when it is wet, because a garden in August tells you very little. We dig inspection holes, work out where the water is coming from and where it can legally and practically go, and then design something around that.
Soakaways and clay
A soakaway should be sized from an actual percolation test, not guessed. On heavy South Lakeland clay a soakaway can be close to useless, and the honest answer is sometimes that the water needs taking somewhere else entirely. We would rather tell you that than sell you a hole full of stone that fills up and stays full.
Flooding, and what has changed since 2015
Storm Desmond in December 2015 caused serious flooding across Kendal and much of Cumbria, and it changed how people here think about water. A great deal of what we now do is resilience work rather than emergency repair — keeping surface water away from buildings, adding capacity, and making sure hard surfaces drain into the ground rather than straight into an already overloaded system.
That is also why permeable surfaces and sustainable drainage are worth taking seriously on any new driveway or patio. Slowing water down on your own plot is genuinely the most useful thing most properties can do.
What the law says about where water can go
Surface water must not be connected into a foul sewer. Beyond being illegal, it overloads the system and is a common cause of drains backing up in heavy rain. The order of preference is: soak away into the ground on your own land, then a watercourse, and only then a surface water sewer. Discharging to a watercourse can need consent. We work within that hierarchy and tell you which option your site allows.
Common questions
My garden is waterlogged every winter — can it be fixed?
Almost always, yes. The question is what the fix costs, which depends entirely on where the water can be sent. A garden that falls towards a ditch is a straightforward job; one in a hollow with clay all round it is a bigger piece of engineering.
How deep do land drains go?
Typically 600–900mm for a lawn, deeper for a paddock or where they are intercepting water from higher ground. They must be laid to a consistent fall — a land drain that dips is a land drain that silts up.
Will you make a mess of the lawn?
Some, unavoidably — we are digging trenches through it. We lift turf carefully and relay it where it is worth saving, and we tell you honestly beforehand whether we think the lawn will recover or need reseeding.
Can you unblock an existing drain instead?
If the run is sound and simply blocked, that is often the cheaper answer and we will say so. If it has collapsed or was laid to the wrong fall in the first place, clearing it just delays the same conversation.
Get a price for your job
If your garden is wet right now, that is the best possible time for us to come and look at it. Get in touch while the evidence is still on the ground.
Free quote
Tell us about the job
Fill this in and we will ring you back to arrange a site visit — usually the same day. No obligation and no hard sell: if it is not a job for us, we will say so and point you at someone who does it.
In a hurry? Ring the mobile. If we are on a digger we will call you straight back.
07919 448092
