Right, the new diverted feed from the rain filteration system is now installed to the other corner of the rain tank. Hopefully we have avoided any leaks !
The old hole in the manhole access tube is blocked up with geotextile so no sand and soil can get in!
In the light of conversation about filtering the rain water and how small (or large) the particulates would get through the
filtration system, we have decided to re-route the feed pipe from its first placement which is going into the manhole access chamber
where the pump is situated which means it would immediately suck up any “bits”.
The feed pipe will now be routed across the rain tank to the diagonally opposite corner and make its entrance!
We are off to buy some extra fitments to join the 40mm pipe together for its new route!
Where the earth tubes get close to the house we have built a block work chamber to concentrate the air flow down too a smaller tunnel to pass under the foundations of the house. The chamber is 300mm below the path round the house.
Installed the final section of pipe in the great hole. This is the overflow from both the filter module and the tank to the soak away.
The various modules, pipes, tubes and tanks are now installed in our Great Hole. It is the long job of putting back all the sand and soil into the Great Hole, making sure each layer is compacted well (we are doing about 200mm (8 inches) at a time). After all the garage has to sit on top of this area so we do not want gradual sinking of our foundations or floor slabs in five years time!!
The only pipework left to do is the connection for the soak away module running back towards the black tubes, on the way a over flow from the rain tank connected to it and finally turning the corner to head left back towards the filteration unit module (not built yet!).
Wednesday 8th September (yesterday) we returned the Kanga Kid earth mover machine. It was costing money every day so on Tuesday we decided to do a large filling operation in the further and least accessible corner of the Great Hole where it would be awkward and very hard work to do it by manual labour, as it would be too dangerous to drive the much too heavy dumper truck over the rain tank without the support of any sand on it to spread the load!! We didn’t finish until nearly 7pm!!
Today we are carrying on with Operation Fill Up which will take another few days or so! Phew!!
Placed the last layer of crates …
Time for Christmas Eve! Well we have a lot of wrapping to do…. Wrapped, folded and trimed the polyfelt first. Next the rubber was folded up the sides and the extra rubber in the corners folded neatly.
We formed a couple of pipe connections for expansion at the bottom right and overflow at the top left. These were sealed by cutting a half-sized hole in the rubber and stretching it over the pipe. This formed a ring of rubber about 2cm along the pipe which was covered in a stip of geo-textile and clamped with a stainless steel tie. The overflow level is 40mm from the top of the tank.
Finally we wrapped up the outer geo-textile and added more geo-textile as a lid. The access shaft was installed last.
Spent the morning laying the 3 layers of material down. 1st layer was standard geo-textile (grey), 2nd layer was the waterproofing EPDM rubber membrane (Black) and last was Polyfelt padding (White). The rubber was the hardest to get in position as it is one piece (of course!) and quite heavy in total.
Once the wrappings were done laying the crates was straight forward and by the end of the day 2 of the 3 layers were placed.
Did preparation work for installing the rainwater tank. Started by marking out and leveling the sand for the base of the tank, we spent so time getting the right as we don’t want the tank to be off level!
Then we humped the 87 aquacell modules down into the hole from their delivered location next to the house.
Had a relaxed day today. Went and purchased some mini access chamber raising rings and a lid to use on the rainwater tank for access into it.
Then made a hole in the top of a aquacell module for a raising ring, attached it and removed the bottom of the module to make a hole right through. Made the same size hole right thorugh another module for the middle layer of the tank, then made a hole in just the top of a final module for the bottom of the access shaft. We will place a submersible pump here.
Installed the rainwater soakaway this afternoon. We carefully leveled the area in the corner of the trench and then placed geo-textile down. Then installed 18 Aquacell modules in a 3m x 3m array, the modules were clipped together. A hole was made in to top to allow connection from the rainwater system. Finally the geo-texile was wrapped around all 6 sides.
