Drainage - Looking to 'Tile' an acre or so

[Kyle241]

I've been opening an some area behind my house of trees and brush and now that it is complete, I need to consider drainage. A good part of the front of my property is on a gentle slope and a property (80+ acres) beside me also slopes down toward my property. This all ends up in the Spring making parts of my property with running surface water as the soil gets saturated. It's not like there are creeks running through my property but you can tell where it runs to. This makes it difficult to walk the trails and drive my tractor down to the open pasture that I intend to use this coming Spring for potatoes, squash, etc. So I'm looking to put some drainage in and I have always dug drenches, laid Big 'O' pipe with sleeve and covered with gravel. Now however it will be hard to get gravel back to where the drainage is going to be (it would be a lot of going back and forth with the tractor and a bucket of gravel). I know tile drainage done by farmers they do not use gravel and from what I can see they do not use the pipe with sleeve so how does that not get silted up eventually? I know it works very well on fields around our area that tend to hold water. Can I do the same or will it in a few years be useless because it fills with silt?

 

[bigtiller]

It's kind of hard to help without seeing but for surface run-off I think building a water-way would be the most help. A slight dip on the ground, maybe 6 to 10 inches deep and 6 foot wide with all the spoils pushed to the side forming a bank and then smoothed out a little. Tamp it down and reseed it with grass and it would hardly be seen. I have one in my back yard and it looks like mother nature built it.

 

[Fixemall]

Most of those gravel runs have a short life cycle due to silt etc, then it is a bear of a job to fix, I would consider a swale along both sides of your property that ran into the creeks you mentioned. Diverting the neighbors water before it gets too far on your property would seem like the best plan. I would also consider a deep irrigation pond in the lowest area, you will be amazed how a deep pond can dry up an area.

 

[Mousefield]

I like two of the ideas others have posted on this tread. One is to create swales ( shallow sloped ditches ) and a pond. Think a pond could be a very nice thing to have.

 

[JB4310]

I do drainage work, mostly interior footing drains in existing homes.

But I also do some yard drainage, the huge deciding factor is the soil type. If you have poorly drained soil, an underground system is not practical. it will only dry the immediate area where the pipe is.

I've seen them run trap rock/perforated pipe type system thru a ball field and the only thing it did was dry about 4 feet each side of the trench.

That type system would only work efficiently with a gravel or sand based fill,
But then you probably wouldn't have a problem anyway with that type of soil.

People ask me all the time to give them a quote to dry out their soggy yards, I tell them I can drain ponding water, even a pond, but I really can't help them much with their squishy lawns.

I hear all the time about major field tiling jobs, but I wonder how effective it really is. Though I have no hands on experience with those large scale installations.

I vote for the swales to control surface water, as long as the topography will allow it.

JB.

 

[powerstroke444e]

Alot depends on your soil but around here most field tile is on 40 foot centers for your small area put it on 20 foot centers and you will be amazed at the amount of water you remove and how fast it drys up. But the surface water will still run unless you catch it in dry dams or ditches.

 

[Artisan]

May I ask please what tile or tiling stands for? I don't get it. I see it is a pipe plowi ng type of process but I don't get the word "Tile" . On UTube I found and incredble example of it though!

 

[JB4310]

May I ask please what tile or tiling stands for? I don't get it. I see it is a pipe plowi ng type of process but I don't get the word "Tile" . On UTube I found and incredble example of it though!

It refers to the time when clay drain tiles were used, before the advent of perforated corrugated hdpe pipe. also referred to as land tile for obvious reasons.
Laid 12 inches at a time, 1 guy could carry maybe 10 of them compared to 1 guy carrying 300 ft of ads pipe today.

History of:
Claytile Drain ASABE Landmark No 3 - YouTube

JB

 

[Artisan]

AhHA! Thank you...

 

[JB4310]

I work with that old stuff probably more than anyone these days except for other guys doing basement waterproofing for old construction.

Every house built before the mid 60's around here, which is 60% of them, has it under the floor as footing drains, found some real old stuff that looked like it was made by wrapping clay around a dowel of some sort just 2" in diameter

JB