Digging Ditches on each side of .5 mile driveway

[Melville]

What would be the most efficient/economical method of digging drainage ditches on each side of my .5 mile driveway. The terrain is very flat and the water does not drain well. It just sits on the driveway. I have scraped the driveway several times with a blade, but I need to make over a mile of ditches for the water to go. This is a driveway that had not been touched for 3 years until this past weekend. It would take a 4x4 to get up the road but needs to be suitable for a car when I am finished. I had access to a lar /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gifge case tractor more than capable to handle any attachments. Just curious to hear your ideas.

 

[JerryG]

If the area is that flat, do you have any where to drain the water to? Is there a area that you can use for run off? If not the road bed will have to be built up above the surrounding land.

 

[Boondox]

Instead of digging ditches, why not just crown the driveway?

Pete

 

[Melville]

The tenant who lived in the house before we fixed the property up neglected to take proper care of the driveway and just scraped the dirt so now the dirveway is lower than the sides. I am planning to dig ditches on each side of the road which will run into the current ditches that drain the feilds. We are planning to bring in stone one it finally dries out and we can scrape it some more. It is really difficult to cure and seems easier said than done. A i need to take a picture and post on here to do it justice.

 

[Slamfire]

Adjust a rear blade so that the lead end is lower than the trailing end. As you run down the driveway, the soil, rocks, etc. will be pulled from the side of the roadway in to the center of the road. If you come to spots where the water will flow across the road, due to the camber, turn the water out of the roadway at the nearest spot upstream that will accept it. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif You may need to make multiple passes!

 

[JohnMiller3]

<font color="blue">( Instead of digging ditches, why not just crown the driveway? ) </font>

I agree... and it will give you the most pay back especially if the surrounding terrain is flat flat flat... tough to drain in ditches that are flat... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Currmudgeon]

The secret to drainage is making the water go away. Water (as well as sjit /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif) flows downhill. These are Duh! statements, but they encompass most of the problems people have with drainage.

Ditches are the standard way to drain a road. But the ditches must go somewhere, or they are just long ponds. And ditches need to slope downhill, (0.5% is a good minimum - I prefer 2% min. on dirt) or they don't carry the water and tend to become long swamps. All of this is governed by the slope of your land. If you try to force slope onto a long ditch in flatland, you end up with an earthmoving project and run the risk of the ditch being deeper than the receiving water. If that is the case, then your only alternative may be ro raise the road. For flat ditches, I'd like the ditch bottom about two feet below the road surface. That way, you have some hope of keeping rour road base kinda dry.

What about cross drainage? Is there outside water getting onto your road? Can you divert that with earth berms along the road, or carry it under with pipe culverts?

 

[rambler]

As Dennis says, this can be far more complicated than just digging 2 ditches. Where I live there isn't 100' of flat land, all rolling hills.....

But, if your land is truely flat, you would be far far ahead to raise the road. Very flat land makes it hard to make the water run away, and any little dip in the topography will make a pond on your road.

It's really nice to have the road up at least 2 feet, or the ditch down 2 feet, or a combination. This will let your roadbed dry out fairly quickly, even in long rain conditions. Any less and the roadbed will saturate & compress itself with traffic & sink on you.

If you have sandy gravely soil, you could move the soil in & up, creating your ditches & raised road at the same time. Rarely does that work well tho, with organic content of the topsoil & it's usually not gravely enough. It just becomes smeary mud every little rain.

Me, I would figure out how to raise the road some at least, get gravel in for the top, get solid hard clay for a bit of a rise.

The ditches could pretty easily be made with a molboard plow & a loader - or box blade. Plow down one side, up the other, & scrape the loose dirt away with the loader. Repeat if the 7-9" isn't deep enough. You will get a lot of dirt, any plans for it? Haul it away, stack it somewhere, fill someplace? Just ridged out to the side & it will create as many problems as it solves.

--->Paul

 

[Phred]

I agree.

That is how I did it, also about ~1 mile total length.
Rear blade is the ticket, and you only need a crown since this basically makes a small ditch.

Set the blade tilted as slamfire indicates and then angle it such that the end close to the road side is closer to the tractor and the end toward the middle of the road is farther back. As you cut material it will flow to the center and create the crown.

Start with small cutting angles and increase as needed.
Also go slow otherwise those hidden rocks will create quite a shock on the tractor.

Fred