Print

[dirtdigger]

I'll pitch in on this one, I install ag drain tile for a living, there are plenty of misconceptions about depth industry wide, first off I have no clue as to where your at, so that said, find out what frost depth is in your area, then go a foot deeper or more, frost has a profound affect on any plastic product buried, the less stress from frost and frozen ground the better off you are, not to mention rocks and chunks of cement in your dig area, frost works on any buried object and some call it frost heave, where rocks and buried debris over time come back closer to the surface and wear holes in waterlines, buried electrical wires and a host of other things buried routinely.   

If I were you, anyone for that matter, dig up the crap someone else buried, and haul it off site, buy and bring back clean sand or black dirt and put that around your line, the reason for burying it deeper than frost depth is this, if there is a rock or chunk of cement just a few inches deeper than you dug, if its in the frost zone and frost heaves it over time, it'll wear on your insulated line and I've seen objects literally sever anything in their way to the surface, with your insulation filled line, it probably won't ever sever it, but what does it do your insulation factor if its would cut even an inch into the line, that's pretty close to your water filled pex inside the plastic insulated line.    The other reason for going deeper than frost is, frost or bitter cold makes plastic brittle over time, the more freezing and thawing cycles plastic goes through, the more brittle it becomes, and when your next question is plastic lasts forever, I'll respond with this, how do you know?   Plastic manufacturers are constantly changing their formulations to achieve just that, lasting products that can endure the test of time.   

Also keep you line as level as possible as you install it, meaning don't go from two feet deep to a foot deep back down to three feet deep in just a short distance, we call it laying it to grade, the better the job of doing this, the less issues you'll have with stretching of your line, as frost heaves and objects dumped on top of the line literally sink your line over time.   Or to put it really simple, don't bend your line down along the furnace to three feet deep and back up to 18 inches deep through your yard then back down to three feet deep by the house and into the basement.  If your bends require you to be three feet deep keep it that depth going through your yard, even if the frost depth is only a foot deep in your area, if any of this makes sense to you, if not pm me and I'll try to clarify some more.     

[slimjim]

Where is that darn LIKE button, Great post dirtdigger, since there is no LIKE button I will award you a HUG!!

[mlappin]

We have a Buckeye wheel trencher and install our own drainage tile as well. Some of it I can remember Dad paying someone else to install over 35 years ago. It's five foot deep thru the hill tops and barely has 18" of cover in the low spots, haven't had a problem with it yet.  Might depend on your soil types, might make a difference as well whether it's a bare yard that holds very little snow compared to 12-18" of cornstalks that hold a lot of snow. Might make a difference further north as well where frost levels can reach five foot or better.

I won't argue the least bit about using clean fill though when back filling. Whenever we replace a culvert we use mortar sand around it, have a 100' of 4" metal pipe buried as well for our pneumatic grain mover and it's also surrounded by mortar sand.

[dirtdigger]

Glad I could shed a little light on the subject, when things like shallow and debris are tossed out it sets off serious red flags for me.   

Mlappin, I'd never consider installing drain tile that shallow, around me some deep rip at that depth or deeper up to 24 inches for some and there wouldn't be any tile left working.    Four feet is our frost depth where I'm at, but last winter we had frost up to and over 8 feet deep in places, a lot of water lines 6 feet deep froze up as well.

Buried electrical service entrance was severed last winter, frost heave sheered them clean off, along with many phone lines and water lines, mainly copper one's took a beating last winter, but plenty of plastic was affected as well.   

Over time if shallow tile gets frozen, it becomes brittle and will crush, or if it were to freeze with water in it, the water will expand and crush the corrugations and when the ice melts the tile will collapse, I've made a lot of money off of shallow installed tile over the years, we call it job security.   Most of our tile is installed in that 4-5 feet depth and up to and over 6 feet in places depending on the terrain and slope.   

We also have rocks, plenty of them, granite, frost brings them up, to have shallow tile in the frost layer, I've seen and fixed plenty where the granite severs the tile line as it works its way to the surface, or crushes it as the rock heads to the surface, also great job security.   
 

[mlappin]

Here we'd have to install drainage pumps if we wanted a minimum of 4' of cover over some of these tiles. Have several others on rental properties that don't have 4 foot of cover and no way will the landowner spend money replacing tile that still works.

We also have blue clay as subsoil on some of our ground, place it in the blue clay and you might as well have poured concrete around your drainage tile. Takes one inch of water one year to move one foot thru blue clay. This stuff is in demand for landfill liners, place a layer of that down and almost as good as pouring cement.

Just got a landlord to sign a ten year lease last year, we ran from the only outlet he had and ran the bare minimum of drop, hired somebody else to dig it thru a hilltop almost 12 foot deep, then the last 200 feet is plumb level. Only way to drain the corner of that field without convincing the three landowners to the west to let us dig an open ditch across their properties. That wasn't going to happen in my lifetime. Each has 10-15 acre lots and let it grow up in trees and plugged the original tile solid with roots.

[dirtdigger]

Blue clay huh, yea I'm very familiar with it, seems I'm one of the last that trenches tile in yet, the bulk have gone to plowing in tile, or at least some attempt to anyhow, others well they're pretty good at tearing through better laid lines than their installing to replace the old.     If you think it worthless to trench into blue clay, try plowing tile into it once and see just what defines worthless and a waste of time.    When we're installing in blue clay, the really bright yellow stuff and the combination of it which is green, we've gone to just dumping the trench full of black dirt and spreading out the snotty sticky stuff on top to be mixed in.     

As for pumps, there are some around, we're actually working on a project now that will require a pump to be put in to make anything work, with dikes installed along a river on one side and a hill on the next and two drainage ditches on the adjoining two sides, seems they made a really nice moat out of their field when the water comes up.   

The rage now is to go in and completely pattern tile the whole farm, ignore everything existing and just plow it all in new, try that on for size, is that done in your area at all yet?

[mlappin]

Sometimes, and jeu tike you said, completely ignore the old and pattern with all new. I'm not sold on tile plows yet, for starters mighty hard to know if you hit a old tile with one of those.

There is 10's of thousands of acres around here that require pumps to lift the water up to the drainage ditch, creek or river. The Kankakee is one that has pump after pump around here lifting water to it. Farmers kinda screwed if the bank or dike blows out, can kinda forget about farming it for at least that year.

Shoemaker Welding in my hometown ships drainage pumps all over the country.

[AirForcePOL]

Thanks for the advice guys.  I'm going to be using sand in the trench for sure.  I might try to go a little deeper but we'll have to see when I start digging.

Where are you located, mlappin? 

[mlappin]

Where are you located, mlappin?

North Liberty Indiana, about twenty miles south of South Bend, home of the Fighting Irish.

[AirForcePOL]

Gotcha.  So is that the same Kankakee river that flows through Illinois? Just curious.   

[mlappin]

Gotcha.  So is that the same Kankakee river that flows through Illinois? Just curious.   

Yep