DIY drainage improvements (how to?)

[dgeesaman]

The upper end of my property does not drain very well, and since we added some horse paddocks, got worse.

I have rain water draining through the paddocks. We need to scrape and replace the paddock surface with something durable and crowned and direct the water out more directly. Project item 1.

The whole upper end of the property drains toward one corner where we have a drainage ditch. The trouble is much of way there is across driveways and walking areas for the horses. I think we need to build drainage features that get the water out without flooding and saturating these walkways. I know where the water wants to go, and I think it needs to take a more refined version of the same path, but I don't know anything about drainage design.

I want to have a basic strategy that will yield good drainage and isn't some amateur hack job. Any tips on what tools are going to be most valuable and what methods will work best? (I'm an engineer of the mechanical sort, so collecting site measurements and building a future state plan in the computer would be perfectly reasonable).

If there is a good reference book or source I should start with, let me know.

Thanks,

 

[RedNeckRacin]

Water runs down hill. I say this because its so simple it is often overlooked. If you don't have enough slope to carry water away to a drainage area, about the only thing you can do is give the water a place to go under the surface. The horses are compacting the ground and basically reducing your surface infiltration to zero. There are a hundred different ways to attack this problem but money will dictate how involved you want to get. I think installing any type of drainage feature other than something on the surface for the horse pastures is a waste of time. They will "walk in" anything that relies on water migrating vertically to a drainage feature.

 

[dgeesaman]

Thanks for your input.

My goals are to make sure that
1) the water draining along the paths and driveways will drain alongside and/or pass underneath. Right now it's just spreading out and following the driveway, carrying some soil with it and keeping it saturated.
2) the surface in the sacrifice paddocks drains water well and in a predictable direction
3) The solution is durable and not prone to clogging.
4) Minimize water dwell time on the walkways and paddocks so that it does not have as much time to soak in.

The horses are not compacting the ground, in fact. My soil has essentially zero percolation - it's mostly silt with a little loam. When it's dry it won't compact. When it's wet it's mud or just changes shape. It takes nearly forever for it to soak and nearly forever for it to dry. This soil type covers my property - it's very rich for growing pasture but it is fragile. Simply put, my soil does not absorb excess rainwater - the rainwater has to leave. I'd love to have a different solution for that, but the only thing I can reckon is to get the water to the holding ditch and let it dry from there.

I know I will resurface the paddocks with landscape cloth and stone dust.

So the questions in my mind are:
- What features can be used to drain water across a driveway?
- What slope is appropriate for the paddock stone dust surfaces, and what tools work well for achieving it?
- What slope is appropriate for the drainage channels/French drains?

How accurate is a level and riser blocks?

David

 

[GPintheMitten]

It doesnt take much to get water to drain. I have a relative flat landscape that pooled water. A slightly elevated driveway (3-4") acted as a dam to retain water. The pastures had some natural drainage tendency but there were some rises that captured and pooled water. This made a mess of things.

After some examination of where the ideal drainage should be, I proceeded to attack the high spots. I created a very slight ditch along most of the (gravel) drive and tapered toward a spot along the drive that matched up closest to the natural drainage. I installed a 4 inch pvc drain tube across the drive to act as a culvert. Now this may be considered amaturish but I didnt want to tall a culvert that would necessitate bringing a lot more gravel in and give the backyard a commercial look.

I then kept on with the slight surface drainage in the lawn and then pasture til it met up with the nautural drainage. I did not use transits or laser levels. I let the water tell me what it needed to continue downhill.

In two places in the pasture I dug out enough ground that was a high spot daming up water. I installed 6" double wall plastic culvert and covered it back up. These 2 spots were in an area that we needed to drive the tractor through and I didnt want to continually breakdown a surface drainage with the tires going through saturated soil.

The results speak for themselves. This year with the thaw, the drive is dry and solid and the yard and pasture are no longer lakes. I dont know if a picture will show much but ill posts some later.

This took a , minimum of effort and soil disturbance by taking advantage of all natural "drainage" paths and merely connecting them and removing impediments.

Tools and methods:
I used my loader and backblade for most of it, some but not much manual shovel work and for the 6" culvert placements I used my small backhoe to speed things along.

The method was to approach the desired path perpendicular and scrape with the loader to create or enhance a shallow trench. Later I came back with the backblade to contour the channel into a more natural slope on both sides.

 

[davesl708]

Consider contacting your state or county soil conservation district or what ever similar name the agency goes by.
They can offer a lot of info/plans as well as make sure you are aware of any runoff requirements. i.e. from the horse paddocks into the streams and rivers locally.
Good luck with the project.

 

[GPintheMitten]

Another tool that could be used is a middle buster to open shallow drain channels. The come back with a backblade to contour the edges. There were times during the project that were dry so ran a garden hose into the channel and let the water show where it needed more slope.

I need to do a little more to smooth some things out and make it look better and clean some areas that I didnt widen enough but it works. Also some areas need more work because I installed a buried water line in the area late last fall.









Before I did this the drive and backyard would get flooded and water stood in parts of the pasture. The drive and the yard in the area pictured with snowpile remnants were flat with no ditch. Also I have since build up the drive with more gravel where the 4" pvc pipe is so I could remove that and replace it with a more suitable culvert. But it works asis.

The picture with the corner of the concrete and gravel drive use to have about 4 to 6 inches of water. Here is where I installed a 6" black culvert that is in the picture but hard to see. Its real rough here because it is also where I buried a water line. Culvert was installed after the water line late in the fall so it need some attention there.

 

[Walkin Horse]

GP you did what I call hydro grading. Let the water tell you how much to take out. One thing I have done is make really wide tapered swells. Pull the dirt out to make the crowns. But I still think there is only so much you can do on relatively flat ground to make it drain for horses. I have moved the hay feeders away from the gates but they still come up to drink and eat feed. That is the muddiest spot where they get to the gates. As it gets wet those 4" dia hooves make sinking spots that fill with and hold water. Several times a day and it adds up.

Hey how about mud shoes. Kinda like snow shoes for horses.And to the OP leave that engineering degree at work.

 

[GPintheMitten]

GP you did what I call hydro grading. Let the water tell you how much to take out. One thing I have done is make really wide tapered swells. Pull the dirt out to make the crowns. But I still think there is only so much you can do on relatively flat ground to make it drain for horses. I have moved the hay feeders away from the gates but they still come up to drink and eat feed. That is the muddiest spot where they get to the gates. As it gets wet those 4" dia hooves make sinking spots that fill with and hold water. Several times a day and it adds up.

Hey how about mud shoes. Kinda like snow shoes for horses.

Hydro grading... I wondered if there was a name for it. Sounds like as good a name as any. An old guy in the excavating business taught me that one... let the water tell you what it wants.

We used to throw hay just over the fence, but now that we are using round bales, we put the feeder away from the gates and fence, as you point out. But the watertrough is near the gate. I plan on building that area up about a foot higher than the rest of the grade to make about a 20x20 dirt pad, then put down some crushed limestone. I'm hoping that will help.

If not, maybe the mud shoes.

 

[Walkin Horse]

I invented that term as far as I know. I remember as a kid taking a shovel and draining mud puddles. Dig a little and watch it flow. Not too deep or you will have a pond at the end that needs a lift pump. One thing I have trouble with is my boarders wanting it scraped and cleaned up while it's wet. Experience has shown me not to do that. Once they start beating it up you couldn't make the side of the Grand Tetons drain right. The only place I use gravel is a landing around the barn made out of # 3 packed in the mud with crushed concrete on top. I insist that it is kept clean and manure free. I have it around 3 sides of the barn.

 

[RedNeckRacin]

Moving the hay feeders around will definitely help somewhat to limit the depth of mud. I have a lot of clay soil and have pretty much relegated the horses to one pasture in the winter time so that the others don't suffer. I have it all on a hillside and the hoof prints do just what was mentioned above about creating little ponds. We have only had our pastures about 4 years so they are still a work in progress.