Draining Boggy Field

doyleshill

I have drain going through the middle of a boggy field.The ground is fairly solid. Would filling the drain with stone be an ideal solution to save me fencing the drain.This drain would be dry in summer.

Melodeon

Be very careful and slow about filling in old 'dry' drains!
My father spent the 60s and 70s tidying up this place and amalgamating small fields into bigger ones by filling in old dry drains.
I spent the 80s, 90s, and 2000s putting in miles of pipes and a quarry's worth of drainage stone trying to sort out the waterlogging issues that arose.

If you do fill it in, use plenty of pipe and stone, and don't be surprised if you have to go back to it now and again in the future.

Figerty

Stone and Pipe it. That drain is there for a reason. I'm sure who ever dug it, probably by hand, had to do so to improve it.

How wide and deep is is?

_Brian

Figerty wrote: »

Stone and Pipe it. That drain is there for a reason. I'm sure who ever dug it, probably by hand, had to do so to improve it.

How wide and deep is is?

I agree.
Last guy I had in with a digger said always respect old hand dug drains. That much effort only went into something absolutely necessary.

doyleshill

Drain is about 2 ft deep tapering to 2 ft wide

Figerty

doyleshill wrote: »

Drain is about 2 ft deep tapering to 2 ft wide

Clean it, pipe it fill it with the right stone.

Work out the length of it and work out the volume; you should be able to figure out how much stone is required. Then work out is it worth it!

Fuxake

Tread carefully here. If the drain is two foot wide at the top you'll go through some amount of chip to fill it to the top. Not filling it to the top would be asking for trouble I reckon although it all depends on what your drainage issue is. In general, the fact that there's an open drain tells me to be careful. I'd be especially cautious if the ground is black boggy soil. I did a job like this years ago but ended up putting in double the length (basically 2 drains in place of one) to achieve a somewhat less satisfactory result.

I'm a bit unsure why you say to save the need to put a fence along it. A couple of strands of electric wire, or even a barbed wire fence will be way, way cheaper than what you are talking about.

As others have pointed out, the boys who dug those open drains spent years sizing it up before they went at it.