Land Drainage
Fairways specialise in the drainage of all types of sports turf and pitches. Field drainage systems can be installed quickly with little disruption to the playing surface so that you can drain today and play tomorrow.
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Primary Sports Field Drainage
The removal of excess soil water from a localised area on a fairway, football pitch or race course is going to require the installation of perforated land drainage pipes. The majority of piped systems today would be installed with the main drain off to the side of the playing surface or fairway with lateral piping connected to this main drain at evenly spaced intervals of 5, 7, or 10 metres.
For primary drainage we use the Shelton Supertrencher
Things to consider when planning your primary drainage work:
Pipe spacing and size
Pipe spacing and diameter impacts upon the cost of carrying out primary sports pitch drainage work.
Main drain pipes typically measure 100mm – 125mm in diameter.
Lateral pipes typically measure 60mm (in a 78mm trench) or 80mm (in 97mm trench).
More closely spaced lateral pipes mean that smaller pipes can be used.
This means that the trench widths are narrower therefore less aggregate is required to backfill and the ‘healing time’ for the surface is reduced.
The flow of water through the pipe is faster and this helps to keep them running clear.
Aggregate choice
We use 10mm spherical pea gravel as this leaves plenty of air spaces for water to flow through. Angular gravels tend to compact over time reducing the airspaces resulting in less efficient drainage. It is best to avoid aggregates with lots of fines as over time pipes can block, reducing the effectiveness of the drainage system.
There are lots of things to consider when deciding what type of sports field drainage system is right for you. Please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your particular problem and drainage requirements.
Secondary Sports Field Drainage
If you need to speed up the flow of soil water from your sports pitch surface a secondary drainage system can be superimposed over a piped primary drainage scheme.
Fairways offer three different secondary sports field drainage techniques:
Sand slitting/Slit trench drainage
This is the most common forms of secondary drainage and involves the digging of 50mm wide gravel or sand filled slits spaced 1 – 2 metres apart. The slits are typically 250mm deep and are backfilled with 150mm gravel and 100mm of coarse sand.
This is most suited to systems installed during drier conditions, and when the grass is still growing to knit over the trenches.
Gravel Banding Drainage
Closely spaced gravel bands (each approx 20 – 25mm wide) are injected in the playing surface by a vibrating channel opener. As no soil is removed, surface disturbance is minimal and play can resume immediately.
This is most suited to systems installed when the soil moisture is high usually during the winter months.
Verti-draining
The playing surface is verti-drained and then a suitable coarse sand is spread across the pitch and drag-matted in to the holes to keep the surface permeable by creating porous fissures in the surface enabling rain water to pass quickly in to the drainage system below. This can be undertaken at any time during the year and is recommended for maintaining the efficiency of an existing drainage system.