Curtain Wall Drain

AndyR · Dec 6, 2001

A few pics of my latest project. Barn is an 1852 bank barn, 42x83. Drains consist of two main risers and grates with 3 side run to small grates. After the barn the drain runs 200 feet to an outlet. Basic construction is 6 to 10 inches of 6"- erosion stone, heavy PVC pipe with silt sock, clear sand to within 2 feet of surface, geotextile cloth and then crusher run. The soil I am digging through varies from sandy clay to hard-pack. Depth of trench ran from 2 to 6 feet. Total length, excluding side runs, is about 300 feet. Equipment used: Kubota L3710 w/Woods 9000 backhoe w/PTO pump and a 16" bucket. BTW - when they say hard packed soils they kid you not - I had times when a 12 rock would hold things up cause the soil was like soft concrete. (You don't even want to think about using a pick unless you have lots of time). Space is tight behind the barn so I have to do the long run first, putting in the side-line stubs as I go, fill in and then dig the side lines up to the stubs. Extra stone piled in fron of the stubs should stop me before I catch them with the hoe.

First picture is of the east end grate.

Andy in NH

AndyR · Dec 6, 2001

Here is the trench looking east. This has been open over a week now with no sign of movement. I hope to have it all finished this weekend.

Andy in NH

AndyR · Dec 6, 2001

Looking west toward the big riser - slope of the pipe in this section is 2" in 10'.

Andy in NH

AndyR · Dec 6, 2001

Last pic - the west riser. The pre-cast concrete was $30 foot for 2' diameter. These are medium duty cast iron grates ($110) - fine for the tractor but not heavy enough for something like an oil truck.

Andy in NH

Thomas · Dec 7, 2001

The L3710 paying off w/all the projects around your home w/in a year.
Glad to see the weather holding on the good side for you and hope it shall continue.

Thomas..NH /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

rdln · Dec 7, 2001

I am curious as to what you are draining? from the riser and grate
I assume surface runoff only. And then you mention silt sock which is
normal for the black plastic drain tile in sand for subsurface water
but you are using it with sch. 40 solid PVC?

Are you worried about the erosion stone (locally called rip-rap)
wearing a through the PVC pipe?

Steve
Champagne Taste, Beer Budget

AndyR · Dec 8, 2001

I am dealing with both surface water and ground water. The hard packed clay would sometimes flake with the telltale black veins indicative of water flow, ditto for many of the rocks that I pulled out. My place is on the side of a good sized hill that has many seeps. Also, experience in the last 2 years that we have owned the place has taught me where (and when) the water flows.

As for the silt sock, I only want to do this once and I am using sand above the rip-rap (around here, rip-rap can get pretty big sometimes but the same term can be generally used). Much more a case of not wanting the sand to infiltrate then it is of any concern of the stone wearing through the pipe. At the other end of the house, where we buried the electrical feed, there was no drain put in and that sand can get like quicksand in the spring (almost ate the lawnmower /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

Next year I will be continuing the system around the back of the house and down to a culvert. The tricky part there will be getting the dirt out of the way as there is barely enough room for the tractor.

Andy in NH