From trench to swale

[rambler]

Thanks for the reply.

So, I guess it's as simple as putting the tile in and covering it up with dirt? I think I have the grade as good as I can get it there wasn't much to work with from the beginning.

I do have one more question: My two options are smooth inside wall and corrugated inside wall. The corrugated inside wall is quite a bit cheaper and it will only have a zero turn mower going over it so it doesn't need to be culvert grade tile (smooth inside wall). With such little grade (maybe 1 to 1.5 foot over 300 feet) would it be advisable to go with smooth inside wall tile?

I've had miles of field tile put in my fields over the last 3 years, dad started putting tile in my farm in the 1950's and their must be several marathon's worth in my small farm. While I hire it done, I'm typically their 5th hand, and used to help dad survey back in the 1970s to lay out tile, so I know a little about tile.

How many acres are you trying to drain? 4 inch ribbed tile is good for 5-10 acres.

6 inch tile is good for 20-25 or so acres.

It would look like you are doing only an acre or so?????? Is this just an area that gets wet, or does water come pouring to this area from acres around?

It's nice to have tile 2 or more feet deep, 3 feet is about perfect, 4 feet is getting pretty deep.

If this is a pond issue, might need to run a riser to the surface, and let it pull water directly down to the tile - an open intake - in the lowest part of the field.

The tile drains out your land to about how deep you put the tile, so there is room in your soil for minor rains. The tile spends a week or so getting rid of excess rains, but it gets the water dow below the surface pretty quickly, taking time to drain out excess water from the deeper soil.

Tile only needs like an inch or 2 of drop per 100 feet of run. Something like a .3 drop is pretty steep, in tile terms.

The bottom of the trench needs to be real smooth, rounded to cup the tile. If you put a plastic tile on a flat bottom trench, throw dirt on top, it will deform the tile into a D shape with the weight of dirt and the air spaces on the bottom - over time this could collapse the tile as things settle. with the tile in it's cuped trench, put loose small soil on top of the tile, so no rocks or big hard lumps of dirt are on it - they tend to collapse the tile. Then you can use your loader to fill in the trench with the rest of the dirt.

You can make a little 1/2 moon piece of metal blade to bolt or weld to your backhoe bucket to form that 1/2 moon shape of the bottom of the trench - or just get in there with a shovel and make a smooth 1/2 moon groove to cradle the tile. It is real real real important to have a very smooth, level trench bottom, no ups and downs. If there are ups and downs, the dirt in the water, over many years there is always a tiny little bit of dirt - will pack into the low spots of the tile and plug it up. Need a smooth bottom.

If tile is 2 feet deep you can drive a 30,000lb tractor over it, so no worries. The ribbed black tile with little slits in it is called single wall. The smooth inside tile with a ribbed outside iscalled double wall, and is somewhat stronger, and will drain more water per day because it's smooth inside, water will run a tad faster. Do not use the hard white plastic, or big-holed stuff with 1/2 inch or bigger holes along the side - that's not meant for drainage, it's meant for septic type stuff. The cheap plastic black rolls of tile with tiny slits in is the right stuff for drainage.

I'm very confused about the whole swale thing, and why you filled in your trench again, and so forth. Not sure where you are at, but this is the basics to how tile is laid.

On my farm I need to get permits from state & fedral, and not touch a wetlands or get withing 100 feet or so of one, also I can't drain into a county road ditch, and have to jump through many hoops and much paperwork to drain into a state road ditch; I assume you city folk can ignore these types of rules?

--->Paul

 

[kongmen]

This whole thing is to drain heavy storm water flow which comes in from near by farm land (maybe some broken field tiles). It's not just a soppy area it's large amounts of water say 100' by 75' by 4" deep. I would like to get the water to run off as fast as it comes in it comes close to the house.

I made a swale then realized that I could put some 12" tile in about half of it because half of it is deep enough (make it easier to mow). The land grade goes up in the direction which I have to drain the water but then drops off into a ditch thats why only half of it is deep enough for tile.

Thanks for the reply. I'll look at making a cupping configuration under the tile before putting it in.