Washout-proofing a ditch

[newbury]

A commercial product we have used on a number of road and highway projects is becoming widely available in the US. It's known as Concrete Cloth or Concrete Canvas. Essentially a roll of two layers of fabric (usually geosynthetic or canvas) with a layer of cement/fiber/sand sandwiched between. It comes dry and wrapped up in a roll, and comes in several thicknesses depending on expected conditions. You roll it out, either in overlapping transverse sections if it is a wide ditch or channel, or longitudinally if it's a narrow ditch. You should toe it in at the top of the ditch or channel. Once it's in place, you wet it down. The cement mixture sets up, and you have an impervious "relatively" quick concrete ditch lining. It comes in various widths and roll lengths. There used to just be one supplier in the US, but I see that a number of companies are now producing and selling it. You can probably find it at a commercial building materials supplier. Be aware, it's not cheap (placing a cast-in-place concrete ditch is slightly cheaper), but it's quick to install, and pretty much instant and permanent. You can do a search on Youtube for Concrete Canvas or Concrete Cloth for videos to see how it's installed and used. The British have also used it to make "permanent" inflatable shelters for military and medical use - pretty cool stuff!

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Looks like it may be a great but expensive solution for bank stabilization.

 

[Baby Grand]

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Interesting. Very interesting. May be just the ticket for a project I have in mind - thanks for posting!
Seeing as you're in Wisconsin, I have to ask - how does this stuff hold up to frost-thaw cycling and mud season?
Winter in New England is a whole-nother aspect of road and drainage construction that has to be solved to get a result that works and lasts.

 

[beenthere]

The driveway er, transversely traverses, a hill, although the incline is not severe. The entire portion of the land on the ditch side of the driveway is basically a water shed for the upper portion of the hill, which is why there are multiple culverts under the driveway. The spring thaw alone (without rain) creates huge volumes of water in that ditch, and it can also push around some pretty big rocks. Perhaps rocks are a thing to try though, certainly here in new england I have piles and piles of rocks. But I was hoping for something more concrete, if you'll pardon the play on words.

Re-route the water using more culverts to get that watershed hillside water across your drive. Really no other way in the very end. Band-aids will not work but for a short time when there are no heavy rains.

 

[Golden Rocket]

I fully understand the aforementioned suggestions - the only issue I see with any of them is that there needs to be some depth of material that the rocks could be pressed into - the ditches being addressed won't allow that, they are bedrock like right there, immediately almost - the same for the blocks, you need to be able to remove some soil to get them placed - and if I understand right, there is no digging that can really be done - something I have seen from deployment is a sock like devise that is filled with sand, it is laid into place, shaped to control flow - typically they get fastened down, but by throwing them into your ditch, the outer rock ledge should be suffice to hold them in place - because they are acting as a filter, they will trap the dirt (sand from the soil), hold it in place and eventually stopping the wash out - another alternative is sand bags - make sure they are porous bags though - you still want water getting thru right - you don't need a permanent damn on ur hands

 

[Bullwinkle123]

Thanks all, lots of good (and increasingly large ) suggestions. Plenty for me to consider. No room for pools, it's all forest under "current use" (i.e. tax-reducing silvicultural/agricultural plan), removal of too many trees would foil that (as well as cost a lot). Re: consultations with the town and stuff, there's an easment on this land going uphill for a town road, and since it's a class IV town road in Vermont (the lowest rating), that means they don't really do much more than push existijng dirt and rocks around and lay the odd culvert. There's no rip-rap on our (class IV) roads. They did upgrade some culverts this year, but by and large, historically culverts plug, overflow, and then the road washes out and they come with a load of pretty awful stuff (e.g. round rocks), "repair" the road, and we're back to our rocky excuse for a road until the next washout. And the roads across my property just shunt the water in directions that eventually reach my driveway. Oy.

 

[airbiscuit]

That post gave a lot of good information. A bunch of pictures near and far would also help.