rambler
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2003
- Messages
- 1,994
- Location
- MN
- Tractor
- Ford 960, 7700, TW20, 1720; IHC H, 300; Ollie S77
Arial photos are great as suggested, go to the local FSA office in your county, or that terraserver site. Many photos were taken in '92, which was a wet year in many locations and the tile lines show up well.
No one seems familiar with farm field tile. It ain't 10' sections, and it doesn't have holes on one side.....
There was the old clay tile, which is a foot or so long & various sizes, 4, 6, 8" or more in diameter. This is old stuff, 50+ years old. They just butted the tile one to the next & water soaks in at the joints. Nothing but a smooth bottom of the trench to hold the tile in line.
There is the concrete tile which replaced it, and commonly is 6, 8, 10, 12, all the way to 24" or more in diameter. This is just like the clay tile, only a bit more modern & durable. It is still used, esp in the bigger sizes.
Now we have plastic tile, which is big many-100 foot rolls of perfed plastic. It looks like the black ribbed plastic on a shop vac hose, with little holes in it on 4 sides or more. Commonly 4, 6, 8, and maybe 10" sizes. Bigger gets rapidly more expensive so it doesn't crush.
Ridgid plastic pipe is rarely (never seen it?) used for field tile.
It is easy to interconnect any of these to each other, as someone said with plastic or tar paper to get things to line up & butt up to each other. There are connectors for plastic to plastic connections. Put dirt on to anchor it, and good to go. Just make sure there is no big gap that dirt can was into, and that the water flow direction stays downhill.
I'm a farmer, & really am happy to see you acting responsibly on this. Here in the farmcountry, we get a lot of folks moving out to 10 acres & shrug their shoulders, not my problem I just drowned your 40 acres of crops.... Sigh. Thank you for caring.
Many of these old clay tile lines were hand dug, hand layed, and privately installed. There will be no court recording of them. If they are recorded in the courthouse or are a community assessed tile line (part of a govt built ditch system) then the govt will ensure it gets fixed, and you will be assessed, and you better have your ducks in a row that the contractor gets named on all the documents & he has to pay for it all.....
If you try to do this yourself, you need to determine the size of all the tile you cut & connect, and make sure the tile you install can handle all the flow. For example, if you have a 4", 6" & 8" tile to connect up, you likely need to install a 12" tile or things will not work (maybe 10" will work, but I'm not up on the converstions in my head...). That's a pretty big project for you to do yourself. On the other hand, if you come across (3) tile lines of 4" each, then an 8" line will easily take care of it, and you can roll out & install an 8" plastic line.
You need to keep some fall to the line, and be _very_ careful of cave-ins. If you get near 4' deep in wet soil types, anyone working in the bottom of the trench is in some danger. Perhaps it 'rarely' happens, but caveins happen, be aware.
You need to go to the FSA office in your county, as well as the courthouse, and get permits to tile ag land. If you are by a wetland, this can get to be a problem, as we are no longer allowed to drain wetlands, but you are repairing exsisting tile. Need to schmooz with the govt folks to get that all sorted out.
Again, thank you for caring about the neighboring farmers. I wonder how your relationship is with them at this time, if still favorable they might wish to help you wade through this paperwork & tile sizing and all. Perhaps some wish to tile more land, and would help pay for a bigger size tile and so on. Now is the time for them, might help smooth ruffled feathers on this.
First and formost, it was the contractor's issue, and I would explain to everyone & anyone that it is his fault, his cost, and he needs to be held accountable. Doing that right, you could bring a lot of attention on him from the govt & the neighbors, and keep yourself out if this mess.
--->Paul
No one seems familiar with farm field tile. It ain't 10' sections, and it doesn't have holes on one side.....
There was the old clay tile, which is a foot or so long & various sizes, 4, 6, 8" or more in diameter. This is old stuff, 50+ years old. They just butted the tile one to the next & water soaks in at the joints. Nothing but a smooth bottom of the trench to hold the tile in line.
There is the concrete tile which replaced it, and commonly is 6, 8, 10, 12, all the way to 24" or more in diameter. This is just like the clay tile, only a bit more modern & durable. It is still used, esp in the bigger sizes.
Now we have plastic tile, which is big many-100 foot rolls of perfed plastic. It looks like the black ribbed plastic on a shop vac hose, with little holes in it on 4 sides or more. Commonly 4, 6, 8, and maybe 10" sizes. Bigger gets rapidly more expensive so it doesn't crush.
Ridgid plastic pipe is rarely (never seen it?) used for field tile.
It is easy to interconnect any of these to each other, as someone said with plastic or tar paper to get things to line up & butt up to each other. There are connectors for plastic to plastic connections. Put dirt on to anchor it, and good to go. Just make sure there is no big gap that dirt can was into, and that the water flow direction stays downhill.
I'm a farmer, & really am happy to see you acting responsibly on this. Here in the farmcountry, we get a lot of folks moving out to 10 acres & shrug their shoulders, not my problem I just drowned your 40 acres of crops.... Sigh. Thank you for caring.
Many of these old clay tile lines were hand dug, hand layed, and privately installed. There will be no court recording of them. If they are recorded in the courthouse or are a community assessed tile line (part of a govt built ditch system) then the govt will ensure it gets fixed, and you will be assessed, and you better have your ducks in a row that the contractor gets named on all the documents & he has to pay for it all.....
If you try to do this yourself, you need to determine the size of all the tile you cut & connect, and make sure the tile you install can handle all the flow. For example, if you have a 4", 6" & 8" tile to connect up, you likely need to install a 12" tile or things will not work (maybe 10" will work, but I'm not up on the converstions in my head...). That's a pretty big project for you to do yourself. On the other hand, if you come across (3) tile lines of 4" each, then an 8" line will easily take care of it, and you can roll out & install an 8" plastic line.
You need to keep some fall to the line, and be _very_ careful of cave-ins. If you get near 4' deep in wet soil types, anyone working in the bottom of the trench is in some danger. Perhaps it 'rarely' happens, but caveins happen, be aware.
You need to go to the FSA office in your county, as well as the courthouse, and get permits to tile ag land. If you are by a wetland, this can get to be a problem, as we are no longer allowed to drain wetlands, but you are repairing exsisting tile. Need to schmooz with the govt folks to get that all sorted out.
Again, thank you for caring about the neighboring farmers. I wonder how your relationship is with them at this time, if still favorable they might wish to help you wade through this paperwork & tile sizing and all. Perhaps some wish to tile more land, and would help pay for a bigger size tile and so on. Now is the time for them, might help smooth ruffled feathers on this.
First and formost, it was the contractor's issue, and I would explain to everyone & anyone that it is his fault, his cost, and he needs to be held accountable. Doing that right, you could bring a lot of attention on him from the govt & the neighbors, and keep yourself out if this mess.
--->Paul
