building french drains

[michaelCEddy]

Hello All! I want to thank most of you for helping me select a tractor for my property. In November we bought a new Kubota BX 22 with a 60" MMM, front loader and back hoe...along with turf and bar tires. I'm really quite new at this, and this is the largest tractor I've ever been on (and am now addicted to hydraulics).

I have a large pond on the property, and many muskrats to go with it, and a lot of projects to be done since the property has never had major work done on it.

I need to work on drainage in several areas, running I think what would be called french drains. There are parts of the property that are swampy, and I would like to build drainage for it. Can anyone tell me how to go about doing this? What kind of materials would I need?

 

[Larry_Van_Horn]

Michael,
Welcome to TBN. When you say "swampy" do you mean like welands swampy as in DEC protected wetland swampy? Even if you don't have that issue you may have local county protection overlay districts etc. which may tie your hands a bit. Just a word to the wise. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Larry

 

[michaelCEddy]

No, not protected swampy. More like the drains that were in the property before have clogged up or broken, and what was once dry gets a bit soggy. I'm looking to fix french drains that have been around for a long time.

 

[Knight9]

Do a search for "french drain". There have been a number of threads on this historically. I recall some really good information I'm sure you would find helpful.

Kevin

 

[8NTX]

I am by no means an expert, but I have designed and built a couple of fairly simple drainage systems for properties I have owned. The first was a house that set on a sloping lot; the house set about 3 ft. below street level. I bought it as a fixer upper - had to do foundation repairs, etc. Before the foundation was done, I installed new underground drains, as the old ones (4" PVC) had failed and crumbled. The new system consisted of the 6" (I think) flexible black drainage pipe, with collection boxes at ground level. I had 8 boxes in front of the house, and 4 on each side running down the hill, with the water running into the alley. The boxes had a green heavy PVC grate over them. The ground was re-contoured to encourage run-off into the collection boxes. Grass quickly grew over them, and an occassional trim with the weedeater kept them just barely visible. The system worked well - no more ponding or drainage problems after that. Even though my neighbor warned me that that type of system would never work in our neighborhood, etc. No problems for 10 years until I sold the house. The foundation guy wanted an extra $3500 for the same thing. My cost of materials at the time was probably around $500 from Home Depot.

The second project was at a lake cabin I inherited - the cabin was on a gently sloping lot, and was built too low and in the natural path of water flows on the lot. This "french drain" consisted of diverting water, by selective placement of RR ties bordering raised flower beds, diverting rainwater into a gravel-lined flume that served as a walkway with stepping stones. Used metal landscape edging along the sides of the walk, and the gravel was white 1/2-1" stones. Dug down about 8" and lined with plastic on the bottom and sides. The only problem I had here, is that this was a lake cabin where it was tough to keep the grass growing under lots of shade, and sand kept filling up the flume where the gravel was. Had to redo it after about 3 years, planted sod and installed a sprinkler system, and this pretty much solved the problem. Kept the water from running into our lake cabin, at least.

Drainage systems can be a little tricky - get local experts to come out and look at your specific situation if you are unsure of anything, and good luck.

 

[michaelCEddy]

Thanks for your responses. Hopefully with the way our property is laid out, replacing the old drains won't be difficult. I'm looking forward to getting some seat time in with the backhoe. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif