PaulT
Gold Member
I have been doing some drainage work to dry out a piece of lawn. The lawn runs alongside my driveway for a few hundred feet. Along the edge of the driveway, at the edge of the lawn in question, is a drainage swale that works fine. I'm trying to tie in some other ditches to it, run some drain pipe, and cover it with gravel so that I can use that part of the lawn as extra parking. Once it dries out, it should be fine. The questions are:
1) Seems like I need to use solid, smooth bore pipe so that it can withstand the pressures of cars driving over the gravel and pipe in the ditch. I want to use perforated pipe. Should I use a silt "sock" like I used on the flexible stuff connecting with it?
2) Can I lay the pipe in the bottom of the grassy swale without first laying down a layer of gravel? If not, why?
3) The swale is pretty wide, and I've got some extra dirt from a ditch dug up on the high side. How can I use the dirt to narrow the width of the swale (turn it into a ditch, really) without filling in the area of the swale where the pipe and gravel will go? I guess I could use some plywood and pile the dirt behind it, but remember that the swale/ditch is over 200 feet long. That would require lots of moving and re-staking the plywood sheets. Another problem complicating this is I can't get the tractor over the swale to drag the dirt down into it unless I do it before I put the pipe in, otherwise I'll crack the pipe from driving over it. I guess that means I have to get the dirt there first, without filling in the place where I want to lay the pipe, then lay the pipe and cover with gravel. Its the without filling in the place where I want to lay the pipe part I'm looking for advice on. Any help, please?
PaulT
1) Seems like I need to use solid, smooth bore pipe so that it can withstand the pressures of cars driving over the gravel and pipe in the ditch. I want to use perforated pipe. Should I use a silt "sock" like I used on the flexible stuff connecting with it?
2) Can I lay the pipe in the bottom of the grassy swale without first laying down a layer of gravel? If not, why?
3) The swale is pretty wide, and I've got some extra dirt from a ditch dug up on the high side. How can I use the dirt to narrow the width of the swale (turn it into a ditch, really) without filling in the area of the swale where the pipe and gravel will go? I guess I could use some plywood and pile the dirt behind it, but remember that the swale/ditch is over 200 feet long. That would require lots of moving and re-staking the plywood sheets. Another problem complicating this is I can't get the tractor over the swale to drag the dirt down into it unless I do it before I put the pipe in, otherwise I'll crack the pipe from driving over it. I guess that means I have to get the dirt there first, without filling in the place where I want to lay the pipe, then lay the pipe and cover with gravel. Its the without filling in the place where I want to lay the pipe part I'm looking for advice on. Any help, please?
PaulT