As we approach another winter thoughts start to turn to darker nights, colder day’s storms and flooding. In recent years a lot has been talked about flood prevention, planning for bigger and bigger storm events and the need to deal with surface water.
There is also a growing acceptance that SUDS is not, as often labelled, just a green fad, about building a pond or putting a green roof on a garage. It’s also not just an easy way to blow a hole in the construction budget.
A well-designed, robust SUDS scheme will be resilient, prevent and deal with flood water, create a better living space for us all, offers biodiversity to allow Mother Nature to flourish, can be affordable, and offer low ongoing maintenance costs.
All too often SUDS are just thought of to be constructing a pond or building a swale, whilst these have their place in any SUDS scheme, a sensible design approach makes use of a mix of vegetative, hard landscape and proprietary systems to create a robust and workable solution. There is a need to look at Creative SUDS and an acceptance that there is no one size fits all scheme.
Hauraton DRAINFIX CLEAN has been developed as a proprietary drainage channel with the unique ability to collect, store, clean and then discharge surface water. During the cleaning process the product has been extensively tested and will remove of 99.5% TSS (total suspended solids) 99.9% TPH (total petrol hydrocarbons) 99.8% Zinc and 99.8% Copper.
It is widely accepted that the SUDS Manual produced by CIRIA is the go to guide for designing of SUDS, Hauraton DRAINFIX CLEAN is included in this guide under chapter 14 which deals with Proprietary Systems. Over several years trial sites were set up in Germany with DRAINFIX Clean, regular sampling and extensive testing has led to the product being awarded a converted Dibt certificate. Within the UK no official testing or protocol exists.
Maintenance requirements are minimised, given time a layer or cake will build up over the filter substrate, this offers several benefits by way of biological filtration. It is estimated that on a well-designed system, maintenance will only be required every 10 years.
Recent UK installations have included retail car park’s to ensure surface water is cleansed prior to discharge into the sewer network. Further installations have taken place for a national agency where there is a requirement to remove heavy metals and hydrocarbons from surface water prior to discharge.
Hauraton DRAINFIX CLEAN offers the unique ability to be able to be able to collect and clean surface water, has low ongoing maintenance costs and has been through onerous testing. It is included in the SUDS manual. It offers designers and contractors alike another option to help in developing a resilient, robust and assured SUDS scheme.
For more information on our DRAINFIX CLEAN product specifications go to: www.hauraton.co.uk under the AQUA section, alternatively please contact Hauraton technical team on: +44 (0)1582 501380.