talk to me about field drainage please.

[Flavo]

My wife and I just moved to the country and I have been working on the house. I have a blog in my sig if you care to look. The entire neighborhood is on a slight hill and all the rain and snow melt comes down the hill. The field that the horses are in and portions of my back yard are pretty wet right now. I know that I could dig and install perforated drain pipes for the non frozen ground time of year. But that stuff doesn't work when the ground is frozen does it? What are my options here? I was thinking of doing some land sculpting w/ some machinery and a professional.
The stalls of the barn I just built were getting flooded for a while there. I dug some quick trenches to divert the snow melt and rain. That seemed to save the day. That seemed to save my wife's sanity and that in turn made me not lose my sanity.

So the cliff notes would be. Does any type of drainage work when the ground is frozen other then having the yard sculpted properly and maybe digging a trench along the property line?

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I don't mean to scare you being that you just moved there, but you might want to find out if you can screw with it without being fined.

http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?a=2720&q=325680&depNav_GID=1654

I don't know anything about CT regulations, but NY would be interested in anything with more than an acre with a majority of wetland obligate plants in it. The Fed govt goes a bit more strict and looks for hydric soils and 5ha. There might also be tax advantages of leaving it the way it is. If you can't farm it, it can't be taxed as pasture...

And it doesn't have to be wet all year long to be protected. Vernal pools are by definition dry part of the year. They are used by threatened and endangered insects and amphibians to breed where fish can not live. (because the water goes away)

Matt

 

[homebrewz]

True enough.. I once had a sand & gravel permit held up because the DEC wanted a 0.1 acre wetland investigated by the Army Corps. Once they got on site to look at it they wound up labeling it as "non-jurisdictional".

Getting back to the OP's problem, if the soil is frozen you won't have much drainage. Compaction from livestock can lead to similar problems, I suppose, but with just a couple of horses its probably a non-issue. Sounds like maybe you need to do a little berm work around the barn area and divert the flow?

 

[benjamin]

Yeah, it sounds like you need some berms built to divert upstream of your buildings to divert the water. It's far better to build the grade right from the beginning so that the water goes away from the builings on all sides but berming is better than insanity.

Drain tile is typically used for flat low lying fields with high water tables and heavy soils, which is why wetlands were mentioned, this sounds like a sloping area that wouldn't benefit from tile or cause any regulatory problems if you're not talking about a large area or flooding a neighbor.