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Need some advice on draining land

  • 22-09-2008 8:22am
    #1
    Kashkai
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,399 ✭✭✭


    My back garden, a half acre, is seriously waterlogged. For instance, during the dry spell around end April/early May this year, the surface of my garden would still be wet to the touch. During the wet summer, there were pools of water sitting on top of the soil for days so the watertable appears to be very high. The soil itself is boggy and retains water. However my neighbours, have told me that they did drainage works on their own land and this dried their gardens out. My garden slopes from a point at the top of the rear garden down to the front road where I have a culvert that would take the water away from the land.

    So my question is as follows:

    To drain my garden, how deep would I have to dig drainage channels and what width should they be? I have looked up on the web and have seen depths ranging from 12 inches to 3 feet. I plan on getting a small digger in to do this so the deeper depth won't be a problem but it would increase the amount of pea gravel that I'll need to fill in over the drainage pipes.

    BTW I did request quotes from a couple of guys to do this work and they quoted a minimum of €3,000 up to €5,000 which I thought was excessive. I can hire a digger, buy the drainage pipe and pea gravel for less than €1,000. I shifted 20 tonnes of 804 over the weekend by shovel and wheelbarrow in that mini summer that we eventually got and I'm still here to tell the tale so a little hard work won't kill me.;)


Comments

  • #2
    smashey
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 21,676 ✭✭✭✭smashey


    Delly had something similar over on the Gardening forum.


  • #3
    Leadership
    Closed Accounts Posts: 457 ✭✭Leadership


    To save a few pennies instead of all pea gravel why not use 2 to 4 stone? Its under €10 a tonne and lay that in your channels at least 6 to 12 inches thick.

    As for depth when you have a digger you should find out how deep to go based on how deep your top soil layer is down to your sub soil and what type they are. I have half an acre as well but I have a clay sub soil about 12 inches down, so for my drainage I dug about 2ft down and the used 12 inches of 2 to 4 stone. The water should hit the clay and route itself off my land into drainage. With plenty of stone down its does not seam a problem not having a perfect slope. Its working well for my site so far but I have only done this just over a month ago.


  • #4
    reilig
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,401 ✭✭✭reilig


    Prosperous Dave wrote: »
    My back garden, a half acre, is seriously waterlogged. For instance, during the dry spell around end April/early May this year, the surface of my garden would still be wet to the touch. During the wet summer, there were pools of water sitting on top of the soil for days so the watertable appears to be very high. The soil itself is boggy and retains water. However my neighbours, have told me that they did drainage works on their own land and this dried their gardens out. My garden slopes from a point at the top of the rear garden down to the front road where I have a culvert that would take the water away from the land.

    So my question is as follows:

    To drain my garden, how deep would I have to dig drainage channels and what width should they be? I have looked up on the web and have seen depths ranging from 12 inches to 3 feet. I plan on getting a small digger in to do this so the deeper depth won't be a problem but it would increase the amount of pea gravel that I'll need to fill in over the drainage pipes.

    BTW I did request quotes from a couple of guys to do this work and they quoted a minimum of €3,000 up to €5,000 which I thought was excessive. I can hire a digger, buy the drainage pipe and pea gravel for less than €1,000. I shifted 20 tonnes of 804 over the weekend by shovel and wheelbarrow in that mini summer that we eventually got and I'm still here to tell the tale so a little hard work won't kill me.;)


    Hey Dave,

    Sounds like your soil quality is very poor and won't let the water flow through it. While you can't change the quality of your soil, you can put drainage in every 3m to 5 m. Normal shores are 9 inches wide, but with a mini digger, you could get a 6 inch bucket andthis woul save the amount of gravel that you would have to use. So what I would do:

    - Definitely use pea gravel, it has the best soakage.
    - Put the shores in about 5 metres apart - run them into a main shore (6 inch corrigated - pipe) which can be put into the lower part of your garden. You can put a manhole on this main shore for to clear any blockages etc.
    - make sure you use shoreing pipe in the shores, dig the shores at least 1 foot in depth, line the bottom of the shore with pea gravel (about 2 inches, put the pipe in on top and fill to the top with pea gravel.
    - finish the top of the pea gravel in the shore with sand and reseed.
    -The closer together the shores, the better the drainage.
    - 6 inch shores will be wide enough. Whoever you hire the digger from will have a standard bucket that they will give you.

    Dan


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