Polybed Domestic Soakaway System

The Floline Polybed System encompasses our understanding of SUDS by offering a more cost-effective and sustainable solution to traditional drainage by utilising recycled polystyrene geosynthetic aggregate in place of natural quarried aggregates. SUDS is an abbreviation for Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems; meaning a drainage system designed to offer maximum protection from flooding by helping to allow water to naturally soak away and/or to provide additional storage capacity in time of heavy rainfall.

Floline Polybed as a domestic soakaway
The use of the Floline Polybed System as a domestic soakaway provides an extremely cost effective solution as the high void ratio of 30-40% reduces the volume of excavation when compared to traditional natural aggregate soakaways. Also, it has been demonstrated that linear trench soakaways typically offer an enhanced performance over deep volume structures.

Other applications for Polybed include:

• Bio-treatment plants and septic tanks
• Sports pitch and golf drainage
• Land drainage
• Retaining wall drainage

The need for Sustainable Drainage
Nationwide incidences of rapid, successive rainfall leading to localised flooding are becoming common place with pictures adorning the front page tabloids or headlining the evening news, but it isn’t the rainfall causing the problem, merely the lack of a means for it to disperse without disruption.
The products used in traditional drainage applications amplify the problem as they act purely as vessels to transport the rainfall from one place to another without any consideration for volume. Therefore, when the volume becomes unmanageable the flooding occurs.

Infiltration (soakaway) techniques
As stated in Part H of the Building Regulations, ‘source control is the preferred option in any SUDS scheme’ and infiltration otherwise known as soakaway should be the method used wherever possible. Therefore, the Floline Polybed System is an ideal infiltration device due to its ability to enhance the natural capacity of the ground to store and drain water. It provides a large surface area in contact with the surrounding soil through which water can pass.

New and Innovative SUDS Solution
The Floline Polybed System stands apart from the usual ‘deep geocellular box’ SUDS system solutions and the heavy traditional chamber systems in many ways. Flexibility, for a start - it can bend around most fixed objects unlike boxes and chambers. Plus the light weight eliminates the usual physical and mental stresses associated with many drainage installations. Requiring only the manpower of one or perhaps two personnel for a typical installation, it doesn’t require specialist skills.

What is Floline Polybed?
The Floline Polybed System comprises a geosynthetic aggregate (known as EPS aggregate) manufactured from recycled expanded polystyrene, engineered for optimum performance with consistent form, surrounding a 3 metre length of standard diameter perforated pipe encased in polythene netting that is clamped to both ends of the pipe. The finished product has an overall diameter of 300mm. For SUDS applications the Floline Polybed System is supplied encapsulated with a non-woven needlepunched geotextile layer which offers enhanced infiltration and reduces the risk of long term clogging.

The 3 metre long Floline Polybed sections are simply joined together by the use of proprietary couplers creating a rapid click fit connection that is protected by a preformed Polybed collar.
Also available in similar 3 metre x 300mm diameter sections are the Polyagg Bundles (without the perforated pipe), which can be used in conjunction with the Polybed as lightweight fill to increase the void and achieve additional storage.

Polybed features and benefits
The design of the Floline Polybed System enables storage and flow characteristics that typically achieve 35% more surface area than natural aggregates, resulting in enhanced water treatment capabilities and a reduction in long term clogging.

The overall performance of the Floline Polybed System provides many benefits including the potential for a reduction in the total length of installation. Other key benefits are:

Cost - The totally prefabricated Floline Polybed System can be installed up to 4 times quicker than a traditional solution and typically requires only one operative and minimal plant

Weight - Extreme light weight increases handling capability and reduces Health and Safety hazards

Sustainability – The use of recycled materials.

Technical datasheet
For more information on Polybed please download our technical data sheet.