If you are thinking of installing a new land drainage system, now is the time to be thinking about it. Here’s our useful tips on preparing for its installation:
Decide on the best time to install
Once you have decided that it will be beneficial for you to install a land drainage scheme you will need to plan your workload such that you arrange for contractors to come in between harvesting the outgoing crop and planting the new crop. Sometimes it works well to carry this out in your rotation if you have plans for spring cropping as it allows for a bigger work window.
Find an outfall
Next you need to find and establish a suitable outfall at the lowest part of the land to be drained. This could be a ditch, stream or other water course.
Undertake a topographical survey
Next a topographical survey will show which way the terrain slopes and falls and how best to lay the drainage scheme laterals and mains. This planning and design stage is crucial to the overall success of the project and should be carried out by an experienced company.
Decide who will undertake the work
Once you have a scheme drawn up and approved you will be able to go out to tender for the work or if you plan to install it yourself you will need to procure materials such as land drainage coil and porous fill aggregate.
Work out materials required
The scheme drawing should be marked up with drain lengths and sizes so it will be easy to order pipework from this schedule. Bear in mind 60mm land drain usually comes in 150 metre coils, 80mm and 100mm comes in 100 metre coils and 160mm comes in 50 metre coils.
You will want to work out the total tonnage of stone or porous fill required to surround the pipework and partially backfill the drainage trenches. This can be calculated by multiplying the total length of trenches x 0.2 This assumes a trench width of 200mm, and average fill depth of 600mm and a specific weight of 1.7tons/m3 for the gravel.
You will need to plan where to have all the stone material tipped so that it is accessible by road lorries, not in the way of constructing the scheme and fairly easy to load up onto gravel carts.
Get the work underway
By now you should be well enough informed and organised to make a decision on your start date to make the scheme come to life.
Where to get good quality drainage products?
We are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of drainage products. These include drainage pipe in coils, large diameter pipe, twinwall pipe and galvanised pipe. Our drainage products come with the UK’s longest guarantee.
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