New Driveway and Polebarn

[rswyan]

At the bottom of this post is a picture of the French drain installed in trench at the rear (East) side of the barn, with the 4" solid surface drain line ready to be placed into the trench.

There are four 20' sections, each with a tee pointing upwards, which will have a short section of 4" pipe inserted into it, to bring the drain opening up to the level of the final grade. I'm thinking that I will not glue these together (although the pieces that make up each 20' section are glued) - to make it easier to set each riser pipe to vertical.

Each riser pipe will have an atrium grate inserted into it (not a flat one like is pictured), like this one (mine are plastic and green, not brass like the one in the picture):

The (original and current) grade across the across the back side of the barn slopes from north to south - the south side being the natural place for the water to go ... but I have some thoughts about using the area just south of the barn and would prefer to not use it as a drainage channel and have water flowing across it on a regular basis - so the final grade will be done in such a manner that if there is a really heavy flow that it could flow that way, but there will be one of these installed, with an atrium grate, to hopefully prevent that from occurring on a regular basis:

The atrium grates are fairly easy to pop out and remove (which should make it easy to mow the area without damaging anything), with the benefit of allowing drainage to still occur - even if there is a significant accumulation of leaves and debris.

 

[rswyan]

This is the trench on the south side of the barn, looking east from the point where the 6" solid drain starts (I'm standing over the end of, and facing away from it)

This trench is supposed to be an extension of the french drain from the rear (east) side of the barn. It will incorporate the rear surface/gutter drain line as well (which ties and drains into the 6" solid line where I am standing)

The white 4" solid pipe crossing the trench is a temporary set up - to handle what's coming out of the southeast downspout.

As can be seen in the photo, the trench has quite a bit of standing water in it (and about 2" to 3" of muck), and has begun to collapse (foreground) - the trench will have to be filled with drier material and compacted, and then re-excavated.

 

[rswyan]

Pile of fairly dry clay, which we tarped ....

The uncovered pile behind it is total muck .... probably won't be useable for a month .... and that's if the weather stays warm and dry (... so figure sometime next summer :laughing

 

[rswyan]

And finally - just to provide evidence that there really is "no joy in Mudville":

 

[doall]

I really like your barn, and have learned a ton from following this thread. Mainly about drainage. Keep at it. Looks good.

 

[rswyan]

I really like your barn,

doall,

Thanks.

I like it too ...... although I'm sure I'd be liking it a whole lot more if I could get things to a point where I could get some concrete poured for a floor in at least one of the bays.

and have learned a ton from following this thread. Mainly about drainage.

Glad to hear that this thread is serving some useful purpose :laughing: The entire process has been a learning experience for me.

Based on what I've recently observed, I'm thinking that I'm going to alter my plans somewhat - at least until I find out that more is actually required:

While digging the outer trenches for the french drains, I found the subsurface soil to be pretty dry ..... now that might be as a result of having a fairly dry July/August/September ..... or it could just be that there isn't much water normally flowing thru the sub soils ....

I also dug about 8' of trench (to a depth of around 30") inside the polebarn, on the back side near the wettest corner ..... this was done after the heavy rains we recently had. Although I wouldn't call the soil that I took out of there exactly "dry" (it wasn't powder, and did have some moisture in it), after a better than a week no standing water has accumulated in the trench.

In light of the above, I think I'm going to modify my plans as follows:

1. Skip the runs of french drain inside the barn.

2. Grade the outer trenches on the perimeter that I was planning to use as french drains (but had to fill in, due to all the rain we had) so that they function as diversion ditches. I can always put more french drains in at a later date if I find that I need to.

I will still install one run of french drain immediately adjacent (10' to 15' out) to the building on the south, east (done), and north sides ..... but I think that much of the issues I've been experiencing may due largely to surface water and runoff ....

Keep at it.

We're hitting it every day :thumbsup: ....... definitely noticing the shorter days though ...

Yesterday we got 80' of the downspout/surface drain pipe installed and backfilled on the east side of the barn.

I did some grading over on that side, filled in the outer trench until next summer, and also spent a lot of time moving and spreading out piles of very wet clay to (dry) higher ground where the sun will hit it, so it can dry up some ..... supposed to be around the mid 70's here today, with a high of 78 on Sunday ..... so I ought be able to get it fairly dried out ..... at least dry enough to compact well.

I had to go to Home Depot the other day to pick up some lumber, so I picked up the rest of the 2" EPS foam for the skirt boards on the inside perimeter ..... this will allow us to get the entire perimeter enclosed and backfilled once I get it installed ..... other than the overhead doors - which I'll probably just board up with lumber, until we get the slab poured.

The 4' x 8' sheets of Formular 150 2" EPS comes pre-scored so you can snap it off in various widths - my son and I snapped all the sheets yesterday into 1/3's (18" x 4' x 8') .... so I'll have 2" of EPS around the perimeter of the barn to a depth of 18" to insulate the outside edges of the slab.

Definitely some pricey stuff .... thinking about putting much of it under the slab makes me (and my wallet) shudder .....

We also tried to pull the 2" gas line with the tractor .... and it wouldn't budge. About 40' of it is underground, imbedded in sand ... the end near the polebarn is free to the sand in the trench but the other end is embedded in clay, at the point where it comes out of the ground .... I'll probably need to clean the clay out back to the sand on that end before it will move ...

Looks good.

Thanks.

 

[rswyan]

I knew this was gonna be bad ......

North side of the pole barn ..... there originally was a trench over here that was put in for a french drain before the building was erected ....

Due to the weather at the time (it was November) the trench ended up collapsing (rain) ..... once it dried up slightly (a relative term) I mucked out the area and created a ditch or swale ....

What I should have done at that point was fill it with dry soil - like I did on the rear (east) side - then compact and grade .....

Instead I placed gravel and 4" perforated flex line in it ..... due to the weather at the time, I was never able to get the connection made from the 4" flex line to the catch basin, so that it would drain.

Part of the problem with working in the area was a lack of space - the building pad had been cut into the bank and there was only around 10' between the building and the bank, which was around 4' above grade for the building pad ...

As one might imagine, the soil over here was very wet ..... the trench/ditch/swale was holding water ... I opened up the trench at the end hear the catch basin and dug a channel to drain out what water I could, and then dug a sump pit and used a sump pump get rid of most of the remaining water .... then I backfilled the channel and sump pit to gain access to the area so that I could work it.

 

[rswyan]

You can see in the attached photo how wet it was .... from the shininess of the tractor tracks and how much they are sunk in .....

This photo was taken after I had cleaned out the middle section of the trench, between the ends, down to solid undisturbed soil, and had started to backfill with dry clay ....

If you look near the middle of the image, nearest the camera, you can see water draining out from the portion of the trench that is still buried, immediately in front of the uncompacted backfill ...

 

[rswyan]

From another angle, clearly showing the water draining ... (near center of image)

I probably dug down at least 40" at the deepest point ..... and the pile of clay that was removed was about 20' long x 10' wide x 6' high ....

I worked to around 10:30 one night and was on a roll to having it completely dug out and having all the soil replaced with dry clay .... but they were calling for the possibility of rain/thunderstorms the next day .... and I wasn't going to take the chance of having both ends opened up and then getting hit with a downpour .... so filled in what I had open and compacted that ..... leaving the two ends for another day.

I started digging out the end nearest the catch basin yesterday .... and I'll get at least that end finished before the rain starts tonight ....

And maybe I'll get lucky and get both ends done ..... provided I have enough dry fill to throw back in there ....

 

[rswyan]

Quite awhile ago I decided that I needed/wanted a rock/soil screener .... made some moves towards doing it ..... but never made so far as to actually get the thing built.

About a week ago I decided it was time - I will have alot of topsoil to spread (which can be seen in the background of the attached photo) that will need the rocks removed so I can seed the area around the barn with grass seed.

After checking here on TBN for various designs, I decided which one I would use .... part of this was dictated by the materials I already had on hand - I had a pile of 2" x 4" x 92 5/8" pre-cuts leftover that were available.

Kudos to Escavader (I think ?) for the basic design: