Old clay land drain pipe

[ProDave]

the recent storm and a minor bit of garden flooding eroded part of the bank of our burn.  It is easy enough to rebuild it and I am already collecting large rocks to build in as reinforcement.

 

But my question is what to do with this old clay land drainage pipe?

 

It has always been there, sticking out from the bank, but until the recent storm has been dry.  Now it is running water, which is good, it is doing it's job.

 

But where the bank eroded a whole section of this clay pipe has come off.  It would appear the sections are short, about 18" each, and they just butt together, not even a male / female socket at the joint.

 

 

I want to re fit the detached bit of pipe or otherwise extend it so I can rebuild the bank back to about where it was.

 

So I thought I would try and see if any standard size pipe is a snug fit inside.  No such luck.

 

 

That is a bit of standard 110mm drain pipe.  Way too small.  but it also shows this clay pipe is not round, a sort of egg shape about 130mm wide and 160mm high.

 

Any ideas how to either join some modern pipe into it, or re fit the original clay pipe.  the problem I see with fitting the original flay pipe is needing it to dry out thoroughly (i.e wait until next summer) as it will need a solid base laid, probably concrete, to set the detached piece on a bed of concrete and encase at least the joint in concrete.

 

Any ideas please?

[crispy_wafer]

Think I'd try one of those rubber clay to plastic adapters and tighten up to see if it will deform to the oval shape.  Might work, might not!

[Carrerahill]

15 minutes ago, ProDave said:

the recent storm and a minor bit of garden flooding eroded part of the bank of our burn.  It is easy enough to rebuild it and I am already collecting large rocks to build in as reinforcement.

 

But my question is what to do with this old clay land drainage pipe?

 

It has always been there, sticking out from the bank, but until the recent storm has been dry.  Now it is running water, which is good, it is doing it's job.

 

But where the bank eroded a whole section of this clay pipe has come off.  It would appear the sections are short, about 18" each, and they just butt together, not even a male / female socket at the joint.

 

 

I want to re fit the detached bit of pipe or otherwise extend it so I can rebuild the bank back to about where it was.

 

So I thought I would try and see if any standard size pipe is a snug fit inside.  No such luck.

 

 

That is a bit of standard 110mm drain pipe.  Way too small.  but it also shows this clay pipe is not round, a sort of egg shape about 130mm wide and 160mm high.

 

Any ideas how to either join some modern pipe into it, or re fit the original clay pipe.  the problem I see with fitting the original flay pipe is needing it to dry out thoroughly (i.e wait until next summer) as it will need a solid base laid, probably concrete, to set the detached piece on a bed of concrete and encase at least the joint in concrete.

 

Any ideas please?

Would some 160mm soil pipe be about the right size? 

 

I would keep it at least the same size or bigger and just sleeve a bit over, I think I would use your big rocks and some hardcore bound up with cement to make a sort of no fines concrete around the whole lot and reinforce the bank, as you are doing, around it. 

[saveasteading]

As you know, That is an  old land drain. Not many work now because they fill up with roots.

They are theoretically round, but very roughly made. 

They are often found where there should have been a proper sealed jointed drain.

 A neat transition would be with a small rodding point, then concrete round the old pipe. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by saveasteading

[ProDave]

It may not be clear from the pictures but the outside of this clay pipe is a very irregular shape with a flat bottom. Presumably for laying it on, which would work fine if laying it onto the bottom of a nice flat dry trench. So I can't see any form of sleeve over the outside working.

 

It might be worth trying 160mm drain pipe if I can find a bit, but it would have to be squashed to go in, and I can't see that happening.

 

Anything to do with concreting, will require it to be dry, i.e. burn lower than present and nothing running out of the land drain pipe.

 

Can you see the dilemma?

[saveasteading]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Can you see the dilemma?

As you are building  a head wall, you could transition to a new pipe within it  and concrete all around and behind. Then pretty stone work on show.

Or take one more out. 18" is likely.

Or build a concrete channel instead of using a pipe, to any shape. 

 

Looks fun to me. 

[IanR]

36 minutes ago, ProDave said:

But where the bank eroded a whole section of this clay pipe has come off.  It would appear the sections are short, about 18" each, and they just butt together, not even a male / female socket at the joint.

 

 

Looks like an old land drain. The butt joint with no connection is intentional, to let the water get into the "pipe" and guide it out to the ditch/burn. It probably started off roundish, but has become misshapen over time.

 

You can just build back up the earth around it and lay the displaced pipe back into its position. Then reinforce the band with what ever you plan.

[Carrerahill]

6 minutes ago, IanR said:

 

Looks like an old land drain. The butt joint with no connection is intentional, to let the water get into the "pipe" and guide it out to the ditch/burn. It probably started off roundish, but has become misshapen over time.

 

You can just build back up the earth around it and lay the displaced pipe back into its position. Then reinforce the band with what ever you plan.

When I exposed land drain on my build it was a flat tile with a U shaped tile laid over the top. Loads of infiltration possibilities! 

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, IanR said:

 

Looks like an old land drain. The butt joint with no connection is intentional, to let the water get into the "pipe" and guide it out to the ditch/burn. It probably started off roundish, but has become misshapen over time.

 

You can just build back up the earth around it and lay the displaced pipe back into its position. Then reinforce the band with what ever you plan.

The issue at the moment is the mud that is left behind where the old bit of pipe sat, having been well soaked, is like treacle.  To just lay the old pipe back there is going to require some serious work and going to require the ground to be dry.  Am am also mindful that the remaining piece, if it is the same 18" long is not very far into the remaining soil before the next joint so that too is very vulnerable to becoming loose.

 

I am going to seek out some 150 / 160mm plastic pipe and experiment with that to see of I can do anything by way of a sleeve.

[saveasteading]

If you can expose it,  you could wrap it in drainage membrane then surround in gravel.

Or just expose what is easy enough and do what suits.

 

Putting on a bed of mortar is an option too, to stop it moving while you are backfilling.

[Conor]

Slide a length of 180mm twinwall drain pipe over it and be done.

[FarmerN]

The size of the pipe suggests to me its more than just a land drain. I would guess it’s been from an old building or tank or perhaps a spring. Or perhaps a main with other pipes or a ditch emptying into it.

In England it would be rare for a land drain to be more than 4 inch diameter and most only2 to 3 inch, maybe things are different in Scotland.

As for a solution to your problem, I only have a ‘bodge fix’ that works in our ground. Find a pipe that will fit externally, at least a meter or so long, fit it over remaining pipe and drive along that pipe with a piece of wood and sledge hammer. The further in along the pipe it goes the better. If you have rocky ground probably a waste of time.

If you think the pipe has any major long term use may be worth jetting it, with an agricultural high volume jetter rather than domestic, low volume high pressure one. Try the local agricultural contractors.

[ProDave]

Behind our house is a field.  No buildings for a very long way.  Just what this pipe connects to is a mystery, other than all the time we have been here, nothing whatsoever has come out of it, until this recent storm caused some flooding, and perhaps the extra hytrostatic pressure forced the blockage (probably mud) out of it.

 

This is a low point in the field and is shown as a high surface water flood risk on the flood map.  Well that is certainly true, it was flooded on Saturday and the flood water ran across part of our garden to reach the burn.

 

This is probably therefore some sort of land drain to try and drain this low part of the field.  Perhaps now it is flowing again, that part of the field will be less wet, though the capacity of this pipe will not make much dent in the water that was flowing on Saturday.

 

I did some searching with my divining rods to try and trace it before.  It goes under our garden and under the fence into the field., but not much further. from that point I traced something left and right, almost perpendicular to this pipe going a short way in each direction.

 

So I am searching for a length or pipe either about 160mm diameter to try and sleeve inside this existing pipe, or >200mm to sleeve around the outside.  So whichever I can find first I will try.  If anyone in the locality (a little north of Inverness) has anything going spare, donations gratefully received.

[FarmerN]

Personally I would go for out side as this will avoid creating a step inside, smooth plastic or steel rather than twin walled, as I think the twin walled would have a lot more friction to  being driven into the ground.

[ProDave]

Well I failed to find any suitable pipe to go in it or outside it, so I set about trying to connect the detached bit, as it was now holding up my rebuilding of the bank.

 

So first I set an ordinary concrete block in, in front of the piece of pipe still embedded in the bank.  I offered the detached piece up to it and it seemed to sit okay and stable.  So I "fixed" it in place with stixall,. which is one of the many glue / sealants that claims to work when wet.  A Very generous bead all around the end of the detached piece and then push them together quickly.  It seemed to seal okay with no  water leaking from the joint.

 

 

That's okay, but it would soon get knocked out of place when rebuilding the remainder of the bank.  So I mixed a barrow load of muck and encased the whole lot.  

 

Once that has had a chance to set and harden I can continue rebuilding the bank.

[FarmerN]

Looks good.

Drain is shifting good amount of water, has to be worth the effort.

Better than my bodge jobs.

 

[ProDave]

Yes it is a mystery where all the water that is clearly there has been going all the years it has been blocked.  Raising the water table in the field I would imagine to the point is appears as surface flooding then drains into the burn.

 

As we have a dry day today, and it is still flowing nicely I decided to follow it with my divining rods.  It does seem to go in a roughly straight line across the field for as far as I bothered to try following it roughly following a low point in the field, so it would make sense if it was originally installed as a land drain to dry that dip in the field.  If so with a bit of luck that field will be less prone to flooding and less likely to flood into our garden again.

 

Should i send the farmer a bill for restoring his land drain to operation?

[FarmerN]

He has a legal right to send water down hill !

You just might end up with a flooded garden again if you sent him a bill!!

[ProDave]

And the repaired section of the bank completed.  Land drain pipe still flowing.

 

[crispy_wafer]

Love that, well done.