Any good resources for French/tile drain design for field drainage?

Two questions. Where do you think it is coming from and where do you think it can go? Is it coming from a swale that is directing water there or is it subsurface water that is daylighting there? How far do you have to take it to keep the water from coming back or being a problem for you somewhere else?

Let me start out by saying I am NO KIND of drainage engineer! Any one that knows anything, kindly/please correct me!
This is what & why I would do:
First, determine where the water is going to drain to. It appears your picture is showing the lowest point is ~near~ the larger tree with a house on either side. I'll assume this is the lowest point/discharge and that the bottom right side of the picture is the highest point.
You're going to need 2 types of pipes, one rigid, solid 4" pvc, and the other perforated 4" pvc. The perforated will be the "collection" pipes that actually collect the water and the solid will be drainage that drain the water collected to another location. You'll also need tee's, elbows, and couplings to connect all of this!
Depending on the elevations of your property, you may or may not be able to do this (as I'm describing)! Dig the highest/farthest form the discharge point first collection trench first. about an inch or 3 below the frost line (42" in Mass?). These will be perpendicular to the white fence in the pic. This trench will also be about 20 feet from property line or edge of garden area. Next, starting at the left end (viewed from the pic) dig your drainage trench. Starting at the drainage ditch, I'd go about 40 feet from the first trench and dig the second. Repeat for additional trenches 40' on center. Put 3/4" stone (washed would be best) in bottom of trenches. I would "level" stone at 2" below frost line and tapering 1/8"-1/4" per foot down towards drainage ditch. Lay perforated pvc in "collection" trenches and solid pvc in drainage trench. When laying perforated, place hole down. Backfill with soil and done!

A LOT is going to be for your to get elevations on your property! This will determine if gravity drain will work or if you'll need a holding tank and then pump. As I said, these are my thoughts and may or may not be correct! Bob

Here’s another picture from the bottom south end looking up. If I had to guess I’d say the slope rises at least 5-6’ over 100’ here north-south, and maybe half that going across east to west.

The source of the water seems to be mostly rain and subsurface flows (if that’s a thing). This isn’t the lowest area around but it is a bit of a bowl. My lawn which is 10-20’ higher is drier.

In terms of discharge there are lower areas behind and to the lefton the property where I could dump to. I think I have enough elevation here that gravity should be feasible.

The other option I had originally planned on was just building a bunch of raised beds. That doesn’t work as well for fruit trees, though.

I spent a good deal of time looking at on how to effectively do drainage.

This one makes an interesting mention of using sand instead of gravel/shale as a filler

French Drains - Earthwork/grading engineering - Eng-Tips

"Torpedo Sand" seems to be a midwestern term.

raco232 said:

Since it’s only 100sqft, maybe make it a raised garden?

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I guess the way I wrote it was ambiguous--the area is 100' square on each side, so more like 10,000 square feet 😎.

Raised beds would work though if that's the best choice. My long term plan included putting in a high tunnel or two so beds might work better for that anyway.

Been in this line of work for close to 50 years. First thing to do is surface drain with say a 30ft wide dish shaped waterway, min fall would be 1%, the more the better. Then run a 4in perforated tile up the edge of the waterway, might take some lateral lines hooked into the main, bad spots maybe 10ft apart. It may take a couple of years to function correctly but If the soil has poor drainage qualities then you can add washed rock in a few spots or even old hay bales but normally it'll work without. Might be best to call a contractor, may save you money in the long run as this is not something to learn from youtube.

I've been looking at a problem or three years. The barn sits 6 to 8' below the neighbors drive. In a heavy rain the run off comes right down to the barn and out the other side.

I put some dirt behind the barn and started diverting the surface water to the sides. I still had water coming out the door on the other side. This is when I suspected that I had water flowing underground and about the elevation of the barn it was coming to the surface.

I decided to do a little exploring and see if I could find it. I waited till the rain quit but still had water coming out of the barn and I did a little digging up towards the trees. The further I went, the more water I got. I kept digging. At the end of the ditch I hit what almost seemed like a spring.



After the next rain there wasn't as much water coming from the barn and it dried up sooner. I dug some more and got better results next time.

I removed the Box Elder on the right in the picture and opened the ditch up some more, this time using the backhoe. The ditch ends at an old walnut stump. I have taken out the downhill side of that stump.

This is where I am at now.



I need to measure the elevation so I can set the final depth of the ditch. I may also add another line angling off to the left.

The barn is much drier and I now have very little water perking up through the floor.

Once the open ditches are working and I have the results I want, I'll put in the drain pipe and cover it back up. My plan is to leave a swail on top of the pipe for surface water to follow.


I agree with the post above, if it is a big problem and you just want it fixed, call someone that knows how do to this.

If it is something you just want to improve and there isn't a set timeline, get out there when it is raining and see what is going on. A little exploratory work with a shovel and see what happens. If it gets better, keep going. If not, try something different. Nothing you do with a shovel will be hard to repair if it doesn't work.

Might consider what some of the farmers do when they tile a field for drainage. All the field lines attach to a header and the end of the header has a special built ’box’. The header dumps collected field water into the box where there is a sectioned gate that can be raised. With all the sections raised, collected water is allowed to flow through the box and into a ditch. In the dryer season, the gates are closed. Water is pumped into the box sufficiently to backfill the header and lateral lines, thus watering the crop from below. It’s an involved process but works. Probably not something most homeowners could tackle.

Bootheal, good point. Not used to much on large systems but might work well here. They do make a control device just for this either manual or automatic but both are costly. Might get by with a simple gate valve. another thing I didn't mention is surface devices that hook directly to the tile, generically referred to as hickinbottom risers.

I think a system in fields used today is to trench an opening with a large sub soil tool.. This has behind it a hopper that is filled with washed gravel, that appears to be about 1" size.. This creating a sort of wall of gravel from the surface or maybe 4" below that is about 30" deep or so.. This leaving a channel for water to drain to..

In a checker board pattern cross ways to the lines of gravel there is a mole plow series of lines cut that will channel water to the gravel.. I suspect this works well in that it will have a limited life span, but leave nothing in the ground that will cause a problem with tillage and crop production..

The Satch said:

If it's a bowl, breaking through the edge of it substantially below grade and giving it a route to drain might be enough. Is your subsoil hard pan or something similar?

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I haven't dug down yet so don't really know. This area was used as pasture or field long ago, like 50+ years, but I think it's just been left to nature since then. At least the top 12" or so is a sandy loam.

Topographically you can kind of visualize this spot as being in the upper right quadrant of a square bowl, with the highest spot being part-way up the side of the bowl. If I follow what you're saying, it sounds like the idea is to put drainage along the top edge to catch water moving down from higher up and route it around rather than through.

pede said:

Might be best to call a contractor, may save you money in the long run as this is not something to learn from youtube.

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If I call one now I suppose I might get a call back sometime after Thanksgiving LOL.

Right now the ground is way too wet to work anyway so I'm just doing initial research. My experience is also that the more I learn, the smarter questions I can ask, even if I do end up hiring a professional. I've found that to be true of doctors and lawyers, too.

If I'm looking at a couple hundred feet of pipe, some fabric, a truckload of gravel, and a couple days of digging, that's probably $1-2K. I wouldn't do that on a whim but it doesn't seem nuts for a moderately-educated guess, particularly considering that a contractor is going to be many times that around here