Drainage Ditches

[Aragon]

Hey MarkV. I'm to the northeast of Rockmart near the Floyd/Polk line. We just moved here a few weeks ago from Kennesaw, which got way too crowded for my liking. Like any recently bought home, we have our share of projects and this ditching job is just one of them.

 

[herdfan]

In my opinion (for what it's worth), I would try and slow the velocity of the water down the ditch with some bigger rocks (rip-rap). You could line the ditch with some fabric and then lay the stone on top. 400 feet isn't really that much to do this way, and it would look nice and be relatively low-maintenance.
The way I see it, the faster the water flow (and the volume), the faster the ditch will get cut out. With my drains, I like to go out during a heavy rain and see where the water is going. I have even made adjustments to the rocks, etc to kinda tweek the flow to avoid problems down the road.
Any pics?

 

[rambler]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I think you all have done this work before. )</font>

If you have a 2 x 2 foot ditch that is slightly growing in size, don't bother with 4" drain tile. Might as well burry soda straws and hope that carries the water away.... Not trying to be a smart alick, just adding a little illistration to the issue. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

What you have is dry times, with a whole lot of accumulated & concentrated water flowing every now & then.

You need to design a system that can control the water at it's heaviest times (which is when it does it's damage) and is cheap & not in the way the rest of the time.

Depending on how much water flows, and how steep the hills are, and where the water goes when it gets to the bottom, there are many different ways to do this.

The best is to make grassed over waterways. But these are hard to establish, as every rain will want to wash them out until they are really well rooted & established.

You can slow the water down with rocks or straw bales or make the ditches meander down the hill rather than a straight shot. Depends on the lay of the land - what you can do. Slow moving water does not move mouch dirt, so it will not wash away any more.

You can put in a solid trough (like a curb) to keep the water from washing deeper, and controling the sides. This allows you to use a cheaper smaller trough (concrete, plastic, ???) but in real heavy rain events excess water can still go through. However, if you undersize the troughs too much, the frequent excess water will wash them out.

Only as a last resort do you want to put in a burried pipe. You need to make this pipe really big to handle the heavy rains, but 98% of the time the pipe will be empty & a waste of your money.

Some form of grassing it over & applying rip-rap techiques should get you a nice road shoulder that drains the water without damaging your work. It may take some time, and lots of small steps, and redoing some sections differently, and some luck to get things established without a heavy rain wrecking your efforts & you need to start over.

But figure out your slopes, the amount of water flow, and where it is going before buying any equipment. You will be using a shovel & hand rake more than anything, I'm afraid, to make a good job.

--->Paul

 

[Aragon]

I have to agree that using 4" drain pipe wouldn't do the trick for those heavy rains. From reading the posts I think the best plan is to regrade the ditches to make gradual sloping sidewalls whenever possible, then use rocks and fabric to slow the flow. Once I get the flow down to a reasonable speed and soil loss to a minimum I will look at seeding. Once the vegetation comes in good and strong, maybe I can remove the rocks to simplify the mowing. Sounds like a lot of hard work but it's got to be done.

Any ideas on how I can use my 5' box scraper to best effect on the ditch side walls to make those gradual sloping side walls? Some of those ditches are pretty deep so I have to be cautious about getting stuck or worse. Do you back in perpendicular to the ditch and backfill the deeper sections before working lengthwise?

I'll try to get some pics posted this weekend. Thanks to all for the help.

 

[herdfan]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Any ideas on how I can use my 5' box scraper to best effect on the ditch side walls to make those gradual sloping side walls? Some of those ditches are pretty deep so I have to be cautious about getting stuck or worse. Do you back in perpendicular to the ditch and backfill the deeper sections before working lengthwise?
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Working the side, v-ditch length wise with a FEL or box blade is pretty tough (at least for me). I've been stuck doing just that after trying to rework my ditches after removing some slips. Ideally, a dozer operator could knock that out without a problem. Have you checked into hiring someone to just rework the ditch and be done with it? Also, it sounds like you're in a tight spot to maneuver your tractor. Do you think a mini-excavator would help you? We rented one recently - looks like a toy, but is a real work-horse and can get into some pretty tight places.

BTW - how's the rain in GA today? There are several parts of town closed off here in WV due to flooding. (Of course, I spent an hour in the rain tweaking my drainage systems. Mudpies for big kids, huh? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif)

 

[Aragon]

Thanks for the advise, herdfan. I have nothing to lose by trying the box scraper or FEL so I'll do that first. Maintaining the ditches was a reason I gave my wife for needing the tractor so I have to come up with something that works without hiring out the job...even if it means digging by hand at night when she's not looking.

The rain and wind from Ivan wasn't nearly as bad as predicted in our area. No more than a heavy thunderstorm. Sorry to hear you got hit so hard.