Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Excavation ? Drain tile/culvert

Ok. Well tomorrow I’m gonna do a little pricing and discuss with county options. I’ll go as big as I can. Looking at it I don’t think 24” will fit. It’s not that big of a ditch( could be wrong as it’s not exactly my expertise). But the leaves and sticks here are a concern as lots of trees. I may have a lead 2 pieces of 18” concrete pipe that were purchased 4 years ago and just been sitting unused. Might try to get those!

I build roads and we typically use concrete. I don't believe I've ever seen an aluminum drainage pipe culvert.

The best of luck with it. It ain't rocket science.

Btw. Fire is not a problem here. We did have a big fire in the mountains few years back that took out gatlinburg, but this area not one to be concerned for fire
Soil is red clay. Doubt I need stabilizing substrate of any kind. One thing I wander is will the ground push the culvert back to the surface over time with some time of hydraulic force from expansion and contraction. Is there a way to anchor to ground if this is something that actually happens and not my imagination to keep it from moving

We bed them with compacted crusher run gravel to keep them in place. Underneath, and half way up the pipe.

Thanks Greg.

The steel one under my driveway is 30 years old and still in good shape.

The one problem I have with corrugated steel is mud. If the water is muddy and slow moving, it will settle out into the corrugates and slowly fill the pipe. It needs some slope to keep the water moving.

Those corrugated plastic pipes (tile) are tough. I’ve personally seen a tandem axle LOADED truck get stuck resulting in sinkzing down on the end of. I heard they are flammable though. The metal ones are much more expensive (double)

Concrete needs less cover than plastic or metal but it needs a better bed if it settles too much it will come apart.If if you have any kind of acidic water or acid rain metal wont last very long I've put metal pipe in three times in 35 years at one place the last time used plastic.The new galvanized is about 1/3 as thick as older metal pipe.If it was mine and I could get around 10" of cover I'd use double wall smooth bore plastic you can use one size smaller than corrugated and it will handle the same or more water.The pipe won't come up out of the ground never saw one with enough cover do it in 43 years.1/4 inch fall to the foot minimum.You can cover with whatever you want but seal the end especially the inlet you don't want water flowing under or along the pipe

They call them tin horn's for a reason.

Metal for me.

Reinforced Concrete Pipe (RCP)

Concrete would be great if budget allows, though I’ve pretty much only used them on city street type jobs myself.

I’ve set lots and lots of corrugated steel pipes in driveways and on ranch roads, have not seen problems here with them deteriorating quickly. Steel is what most anyone here would use on a rural project, And these are galvanized steel, not aluminum. Concrete end treatments are always nice to prevent crushing. We typically use pre fab ends now up to 24” as they’re usually cheaper than having them poured in place. But if you could wait until you have a concrete crew onsite for other work they may pour the ends for a reasonable price. In that case use the corrugated sloped ends. The pre fab concrete ends are heavy, I believe the 24” 6:1 sloped ends are around 5000#.

As mentioned ADS corrugated poly pipe is good also, it’s stout stuff. I use it often for buried drain lines and to sleeve PVC water lines under roads. I’ve only used it for culvert pipe on a few small drives where a 10” pipe was all that was desired, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work fine for 18-24” culvert if that’s what you want.

PVC is no bueno for culverts, it will shatter easily

I am in the NC mountains. I guess we have acid rain because like I said, we lost a 24 inch steel pipe in 17 years. The bottom was rusted out, there was a five inch wide rusted hole along the entire bottom of the pipe.

CMP will be the cheapest by far. Also easiest to handle and get. Galvanized should last nearly 50 years and unlike plastic pipes will not burn if you burn your ditches.