pipe drains

RobinBanks

Hi All,

had a conversation with a lad earlier about pipe drains. So many options but we couldnt agree on what works best.

2" stone with pipe
2" stone no pipe
3" stone with pipe
3" stone no pipe
Connaught agri pip no stone.

He reckons the 3" stone wont work as well as the 2" as the soil will merge with this stone quicker than the 2". He thought the connaught agri pipes work the best.

I have about 200m of a drain to put into a field. It will run from the main drain up through the centre of the field. Problem is I dont know what way I should do it now!

DMAXMAN

for what its worth i would use 3 inch pipe and 2" stone. saw our drainage contractor was doing a bit the other day in a very wet hollow in a field and after normal draining he put in vertical pieces of pipe to just under the topsoil level. sloped the backfilldown to these pipes nand filled with more stone to get ewater away quick in the wet spots

Figerty

You will get loads of advice from all sorts.. so here's my 2 cents...

• The gaps between the stones must be smaller than the gaps in the pipe or the pipe will fill over time.
• I have used 50mm and 75mm pipe with 30mm stone and the dirt gets in.
• I used 20mm stone and 10 years later I had dug up some to connect in and they are perfect.
• I use sandstone as the round edges are supposed to allow the smaller particles to run through and not bind on the corners.
• If you are in a region with 'iron' water, then don't use limestone as it will react, cake up and block.

I got that advice from a playing field expert who actually reccomends 10mm stone with the yellow pipe.

Only use the connauct agri pipe on boogy ground. No good on mud where the soil won't allow the water to move through. It's a bit fiddly to join up and a bit delicate.

just do it

DMAXMAN wrote: »

for what its worth i would use 3 inch pipe and 2" stone. saw our drainage contractor was doing a bit the other day in a very wet hollow in a field and after normal draining he put in vertical pieces of pipe to just under the topsoil level. sloped the backfilldown to these pipes nand filled with more stone to get ewater away quick in the wet spots

Why not just fill the drain to the top with stone in the particularly wet spots? How close to the surface does he normally fill with stone i.e. what depth of top soil does he normally backfill over the stone?

just do it

Good section in the journal about 2 weeks ago on drainage. Worth a look if you can get your hands on it. It's important to know the profile of the land your draining in order to decide on the appropriate drain. Regarding stone to quote directly "from tests carried out over the years, we know that round washed stone varying from 7mm to 17mm in size has proved to be the best type of porous fill over drainage pipes."

You may get away without a pipe over a short run but with a drain of 200m long you need a pipe. That volume of water just won't be able to make it's way that distance.

dharn

just do it wrote: »

Good section in the journal about 2 weeks ago on drainage. Worth a look if you can get your hands on it. It's important to know the profile of the land your draining in order to decide on the appropriate drain. Regarding stone to quote directly "from tests carried out over the years, we know that round washed stone varying from 7mm to 17mm in size has proved to be the best type of porous fill over drainage pipes."

You may get away without a pipe over a short run but with a drain of 200m long you need a pipe. That volume of water just won't be able to make it's way that distance.

I am draining boggy ground at present I have noticed over the years thet the water seems to enter the main drain through the stones rather than the pipe, so was thinking of not using pipe at all and filling the shores to surface level

mf240

Drained a lot of land here. Pipe is not needed just plenty of stone.

In marly ground bring stone up to above Marl.

ford2600

Have a local Himac driver with vast experience 40 years plus and success of draining wet marly soil on top of brown stone.

A few essentials.

• Clean any small bits of muck from bottom of drain as it is being dug. (you need to be nearly beside the digger bucket.
• then one man keeps pipe in tension while the other manually shovels in stone from transport box or whatever
• This put clean stone under pipe as well as on top
• immediately lay roll of plastic(damaged roll od silage bale wrap is the business) on top of stone. When drain is on curve be careful to cover stone.
• The problem with wet land is underneath, drain the springs, old blocked stone drains etc.

This procedure was followed to the tee 12 years ago in one 9 acre field and 11 years ago in another. Drains still flying.


Forget about trying to drain surface water the problem is underneath IMHO


Based in west waterford area btw

mf240 wrote: »

Drained a lot of land here. Pipe is not needed just plenty of stone.

In marly ground bring stone up to above Marl.

DMAXMAN

just do it wrote: »

Why not just fill the drain to the top with stone in the particularly wet spots? How close to the surface does he normally fill with stone i.e. what depth of top soil does he normally backfill over the stone?

he had a 6 foot drain going through the wet spot and ti would have cost a fortune to completely backfill wit stone. as it waqs he put in 45 ton of stone for 250 meters of drain. 15 tons went in for the 4 sumps in the wet spots he brought the stone around the sumps up to the top of the subsoil/marl and levelled back topsoil over that

reilig

Are a lot of people putting in sumps for drainage? It's something that we have never done. But most articles on drainage in the press show them being put in.

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

Are a lot of people putting in sumps for drainage? It's something that we have never done. But most articles on drainage in the press show them being put in.

There is a dairy farmer beside us that does it a lot. So I followed suite last summer. Had 2 separate wet spots in an otherwise very dry field. Had no drain to drain to so just got digger driver to dig two deep trenches the length of the wet spots and about 6-8' apart with shoring bucket and full them to top with 2" stone using a borrowed hydraulic link box. Walked it there a few days ago. Lovely and green.. was wet and yellow this time last year.

td5man

dharn wrote: »

I am draining boggy ground at present I have noticed over the years thet the water seems to enter the main drain through the stones rather than the pipe, so was thinking of not using pipe at all and filling the shores to surface level

For the first couple of metres i just cover the pipe with stone and backfill with clay, this means that the water has to run through the pipe keeping the outlet clear.

td5man

Muckit wrote: »

There is a dairy farmer beside us that does it a lot. So I followed suite last summer. Had 2 separate wet spots in an otherwise very dry field. Had no drain to drain to so just got digger driver to dig two deep trenches the length of the wet spots and about 6-8' apart with shoring bucket and full them to top with 2" stone using a borrowed hydraulic link box. Walked it there a few days ago. Lovely and green.. was wet and yellow this time last year.

Have used sumps several times and it was mainly in dry gravelly ground that had been destoned for spuds.

just do it

DMAXMAN wrote: »

saw our drainage contractor was doing a bit the other day in a very wet hollow in a field and after normal draining he put in vertical pieces of pipe to just under the topsoil level. sloped the backfilldown to these pipes nand filled with more stone to get ewater away quick in the wet spots

DMAXMAN wrote: »

he had a 6 foot drain going through the wet spot and ti would have cost a fortune to completely backfill wit stone. as it waqs he put in 45 ton of stone for 250 meters of drain. 15 tons went in for the 4 sumps in the wet spots he brought the stone around the sumps up to the top of the subsoil/marl and levelled back topsoil over that

I think I get you know. The idea of the sump is to drain water down deep into a permeable layer, as opposed to carrying it away to a trench. Is that right?

dharn

just do it wrote: »

I think I get you know. The idea of the sump is to drain water down deep into a permeable layer, as opposed to carrying it away to a trench. Is that right?

I have shores open at present they are about 2 foot deep v shaped there is amout 2 to 3 inches of water in them now, remember this is very boggy ground but was very usable in the good years but has gotten very rushy in the last few, anyway how much stone should I put under the pipe and does the yellow pipe have to be very level as its impossible to level the stone once in the shore

49801

dharn wrote: »

I have shores open at present they are about 2 foot deep v shaped there is amout 2 to 3 inches of water in them now, remember this is very boggy ground but was very usable in the good years but has gotten very rushy in the last few, anyway how much stone should I put under the pipe and does the yellow pipe have to be very level as its impossible to level the stone once in the shore

So long as trench has a fall pipe should be ok

We only put stone under pipe when the bottom of the trench is muddy. After clearing the mud away. Others will disagree but that is what we do,

td5man

Cut the end off a 100mm land drain that had been damaged and out flowed a load of frogs and water.

Figerty

49801 wrote: »

So long as trench has a fall pipe should be ok

We only put stone under pipe when the bottom of the trench is muddy. After clearing the mud away. Others will disagree but that is what we do,

In boggy ground put about 2-3 inches of stone in.

On mud you could do without the stone, but it will be useful to make sure that the pipe doesn't sag in low spots.