Best method of putting in French (underground) drainage for lawn?

[Dargo]

I've done a lot in digging but I'm a pure novice in handling underground water and getting rid of surface water on a field from below. As I've posted on here before, I put a soccer field in my back yard for my daughter's teams to practice on. Unfortunately, that flat(ish) area has several underground springs that stay active until about June. I also pick up some run off that goes into my lake.

I've heard so many ways to get the water and put in my first set of lines, but I'm not sure what the best method is. Going through the worst area, just north of the soccer field, I trenched in a 2' wide trench only about 2' deep all down the side terminating in my lake. I lined the bottom of the slop pit (what it looked like within an hour) with a few inches of gravel and then put in two 4" perforated corrugated with fabric sock lines on each side of the trench. I then put in a few more inches of #2 gravel to hold them in place and keep them from floating. At the pond I just built a small box of plywood with two 4 1/2" holds in them that empty just under the waterline. I drove two 1/2" pieces of rebar over each pope in an "X" shape just to hold them down to the natural level of emptying into the pond and mixed up a couple 80 pound bags of concrete and poured around the pipes. This seems a must from past drains (downspout) that terminate into the pond. Without the concrete collar of sort, either fish or something seems to like digging back next to the pipes.

Anyway, it's rained about an inch or two every 2 or 3 days since I did that first run. It's hard to tell if it's working well or not since it's still such a soupy mess. I can crumble a small dirt clod over the end of the pipes in the lake and there obviously is flow from them yet those two lines clearly aren't keeping up. Before I go trenching up the rest of the field I was curious of how other people have handled similar tasks. I'd planned on just zig-zagging down the field and doing the same thing. Obviously, it's also getting expensive. The company I buy the pipe from tells me that I can skip the gravel part and their commercial customers just install the perforated socked pipe without gravel. Other people have told me that they have skipped the pipe and just made gravel runs covered with landscaping fabric. It seems like dirt will eventually clog that, but I don't know. Thoughts...as I watch it rain more?

 

[Cami]

I feel for you. Dealing with water can be a real pain. I spent one winter with a company that had nasty drainage issues on their site. I was allegedly hired as a welder but spent a lot of my time babysitting pumps and recovering mired equipment. I only went back to full time welding after the mess froze solid....that solution doesn't really help your daughter's team, though...

If you want to research online, the keyword you want to use is dewatering. As for what to do on rainy days, I suggest a trip to the library. A book I can recommend is Construction Dewatering: New Methods and Applications. Here's the Amazon page for the book; I can recommend this one as well. If your library doesn't have it, ask about interlibrary loans; that's how I laid hands on both of these books.

Most of it probably won't be relavant to your specific problem but the general principals, in my opinion, make them worthwhile reads.

I'd say, "don't have too much fun," but I know you won't.

 

[2manyrocks]

FWIW, if your soil has enough gravel in it, then I would say you can install the perf. pipe with a sock. If you have a clay soil, the clay itself can prevent the water from getting to your pipe if you have "insulated" the pipe with clay soil.

The problem with underground springs is they can pump a lot of water and if they have multiple exit points, then it can be tough to pick them all up. Worse, when you dig in one spot to pick up a spring, you can alter its course of flow.

The other thing that comes to mind is that your drain pipe exits into a body of water, it's not going to carry off drain water as well as a pipe that has no resistance at the exit point.

 

[Dargo]

I do have heavy clay soil. Short of spending a fortune and running a massive amount of lines in gravel just a foot or so under the surface seems like what I'm reading. Hmm, I guess some things just can't be done within a reasonable price range. I don't really think it would be prudent to spend over ten thousand dollars and half a summer to dry out an area just for a few extra months of use.

 

[2manyrocks]

You're getting way beyond my level of knowledge--in theory, I suppose you could excavate a layer of top soil, trench in a drain line, install an area of filter fabric, put rock on it, and then another layer of filter fabric to keep the clay out. Then you put your top soil back on top of the whole thing. Then you'd have an absorbent pad to pick up the water that you could pipe off elsewhere. The size of the area would be matched to the size of the area that you're having drainage problems with. No idea what it would cost.

The thing I would worry about would be kids slipping and falling because of wet ground conditions.

 

[whistlepig]

I do have heavy clay soil. Short of spending a fortune and running a massive amount of lines in gravel just a foot or so under the surface seems like what I'm reading. Hmm, I guess some things just can't be done within a reasonable price range. I don't really think it would be prudent to spend over ten thousand dollars and half a summer to dry out an area just for a few extra months of use.

I've tried this on my own and failed. Some times it's cheaper to let the pro's do it. It was for me. People that tile for a living.

 

[2manyrocks]

If you don't mind saying, could you describe what to watch out for in trying to fix this?