In this paper, a reliable and reproducible experimental procedure for the study of the through-thickness flow induced by the compaction of a saturated porous media is presented. Experimental fluid pressure data are exploited in the validation of a fully coupled fluid-mechanical model and the verification of the related material parameters. The experimental results show overall good agreement with the numerical solution, for all three configurations tested. In addition, up-scaling rules have been identified, which relate the consolidation time with the fluid viscosity and the number of layers.