DRAIN TILE DEPTH

[barbersurgeon]

hello all! i need to run about 300ft of drain tile on my recreation prop. how far should i burry the drain tile? i live in upstate ny (auburn). the soil is hard, wet, and clay like. no sand here. there will be very little vehicle traffic in the area. i've heard 3ft but that seems to be a little deep. thanks ahead for any pointers. i will be using a dingo with a trencher 6inch wide and 3 ft deep. thanks for all the help!

mike

 

[SPIKER]

much of it depends on where it has to come out. It needs (to work the right way) to feed out to daylight. so that means you should have fall from the area you want to drain out to daylight. The depth of the tile should be at least a couple feet deep for regular traffic. the 3 feet should be plenty and maybe over kill but again if the water cant get OUT then you will be loosing battle on the wet areas.

Mark

 

[vtsnowedin]

Six feet is the standard for highway work which puts it below the frost line of a plowed off road or parking lot. Three feet will do if that's what your machine can reach. Be careful of the grade using at least a quarter inch of pitch on a four foot level and backfill the first foot at least with clean sand or pea stone. Also be very careful to not risk cave-ins of the trench while you are bent over joining pipe sections. Anything over hip deep needs a trench box or needs to be sloped back to a stable angle.

 

[DutchHenryBrown]

:welcome:To TBN.:thumbsup:

 

[Fossil Farm]

For field tile, 30 inches is the minimum to the bottom of the trench so you have about 24 inches of cover. Drain tile works in roughly a "V" from the center, so it will drain an area 20 to 25 feet on each side of the tile. Again, it depends on conditions. Depends on soil type, what you are trying to drain, crops being grown or how much water you are trying to move, etc. If you have a soil conservation district in your county or an extension agent, you may want to check with them on what is suggested for your soils if you are going to be adding tile in the future. As said, you need a good outlet and the tile needs a minimum of a tenth grade (laser tile machines can get this accurate) for decent drainage. Good luck.

 

[JasG]

hello all! i need to run about 300ft of drain tile on my recreation prop. how far should i burry the drain tile? i live in upstate ny (auburn). the soil is hard, wet, and clay like. no sand here. there will be very little vehicle traffic in the area. i've heard 3ft but that seems to be a little deep. thanks ahead for any pointers. i will be using a dingo with a trencher 6inch wide and 3 ft deep. thanks for all the help!

mike

If your in clay better to use a backhoe and dig a 2' wide trench IMO. Others around here have tried a tile plow or trenchers, the clay is hard to drain anyway and with a narrow trench it plugs up quickly. So in a couple of years it's not draining. I do pitch the drain some, but don't worry about exact amounts because of the high amount of stone we use. We will start out at around 24" deep and go deeper as we go (we use 4" tile so) so soon we are deeper. We fill the trench to about 6"-12" over the tile with #2 stone and cover the top of the stone with fabric to try and keep the stone clean. If the soil wasn't so high in clay a trencher would work fine, I've done that too in other areas with better soil. I've got some that have been in the ground 10 years now and even as wet a spring as we have had are draining great. Farmer next to us just re-did a drain he put in 5-6 years ago, and he still is using the dirt to back fill the whole thing. So probably in a few years he will be back doing it again.

 

[Fossil Farm]

the clay is hard to drain anyway and with a narrow trench it plugs up quickly. So in a couple of years it's not draining.

Yea, we have some clay soils that just seal around any subsurface drainage. So bad that the researchers only recommend surface drainage now on those soils for field crops.

 

[JasG]

Yea, we have some clay soils that just seal around any subsurface drainage. So bad that the researchers only recommend surface drainage now on those soils for field crops.

For us we have a lot of rolling hills that surface drainage wouldn't work well. A few fields I was able to grade with a dozer, but not all.

That is why we don't go very deep, no point to it in clay. Also I try and follow the contour of the ground and trench in the low areas. We have also in the worst areas spread manure with a lot of bedding material on the spoil pile to try and mix in material that will drain. At times as I dig I may even sort out the heavy clay and try and just use top soil for the fill. Then spread the clay out on the field. So far for us it has worked. The stone fill give a huge surface area to the sides of the trench, so any area that can flow will. The rest though we have to count on water flowing across the surface to the trench and flowing down through. Our problem is the water not draining and being held like in a bowl.