Best place to buy field tile?

[Hardscrable]

To answer your questions…
The closest to you for bulk tile is Drainage Solutions in Lebanon, north side where Carter lumber used to be.
Menards and others is junk IMO. But I’m focused on my stuff lasting at least as long as those who went before us, 100 years. Not worth the drive to Francesville for 500’, I run trucks up there for 6 rolls at a time, 18,000’ of 4”, less on bigger sizes of course.
If you want Fratco tile (the best, arguably) I keep a lot in stock, and neighbors come help themselves but I’m not set up for retail. But I do have the stuff and happy to help a neighbor out. If this is a summer deal and you need an odd amount of tile you can take one of my carts and string off what you need.

Don’t buy tile with sock. You don’t have iron ochre, you don’t have that much sand. That will save you as much money as anything. Landscapers around here just use it to upsell, and because more is better, but it’s not. Regular slot tile.

There’s no reason to go any bigger than what your hooking into, if you’re going into an open ditch I can help you calculate what you need, or search for online water flow calculators. If you’re going in an open ditch you’ll need a permit from the county and $75.

If you want it to last, you need to understand how the tile needs supported, and that a flat bottom trench (hoe bucket) is the enemy of it lasting a long time. It needs supported on its haunches, in other words about 4:30 and 7:30, to maintain its roundness and strength. A few ways to do this, shovel a narrow v shaped trench in the bottom of your backhoe trench for the tile to lay in, or fill with gravel up to the haunches for support, or, and this is the way I like to do it when possible, use your hoe to take out the top half of the old clay, and then pop out the bottom pieces by hand and this leaves you the perfect spot to lay the new tile in - assuming two things, that you don’t need to go any deeper than the old and you’re no bigger than the old.

The problem with a trencher that you’ll rent is that it’s very hard to stay on the line and find anything tying in if you veer off. If you’re sure there’s nothing tying in and you want to go deeper a trencher could be a viable option, but nothing you rent will have great grade control nor a provision to lay the tile in on a clean shaped trench. It can still work, but it’s nice to have a trench wide enough to see and work in.

Gravel; in a pasture situation use all you can. People think big tractors compact the ground worse than grandpas farmall M, but they ain’t got nothin on horse’s hooves. Livestock will seal up that ground hard. Stone is the only answer, but most can’t afford to stone the whole trench to the top. Do it where you can, and you can at least get the water off the low spots in a hurry.

Start at the bottom, not the top. You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that, you’ll only do it once.

One last thing, tile floats. If there’s more water outside the tile than inside, up it comes, all the way to the top of you let it. Get some dirt on it asap, and get it backfilled before it rains.

All very good advice. I never did tiling commercially but owned my own tiling machine, backhoe, etc. and repaired, installed, etc. countless feet of tile on my own farms. Not as easy to do and do correctly as many think. Long learning curve on your own.

 

[phylodog]

I was originally planning to use stone in the trench. My thought was to lay a few inches in the bottom, lay the tile on that then backfill up to a few inches (minimum) above the tile then dirt. Would that be a good way to go? If so, what kind of stone is recommended? I have a bunch of oversized gravel in my drive that my wife is begging me to get rid of but I'm thinking that might not be a good choice unless it were sifted to get rid of the fines/dust.

 

[ditcherman]

I was originally planning to use stone in the trench. My thought was to lay a few inches in the bottom, lay the tile on that then backfill up to a few inches (minimum) above the tile then dirt. Would that be a good way to go? If so, what kind of stone is recommended? I have a bunch of oversized gravel in my drive that my wife is begging me to get rid of but I'm thinking that might not be a good choice unless it were sifted to get rid of the fines/dust.

For water infiltration you don’t want any fines or dust. For base layer type stuff it would be fine.
Maybe it could find a home in or around the barn, or gates/paths?
If you can dig on grade that’s the cheapest way to go, but stone base is good too for water infiltration.

 

[manifest destiny]

To answer your questions…
The closest to you for bulk tile is Drainage Solutions in Lebanon, north side where Carter lumber used to be.
Menards and others is junk IMO. But I’m focused on my stuff lasting at least as long as those who went before us, 100 years. Not worth the drive to Francesville for 500’, I run trucks up there for 6 rolls at a time, 18,000’ of 4”, less on bigger sizes of course.
If you want Fratco tile (the best, arguably) I keep a lot in stock, and neighbors come help themselves but I’m not set up for retail. But I do have the stuff and happy to help a neighbor out. If this is a summer deal and you need an odd amount of tile you can take one of my carts and string off what you need.

Don’t buy tile with sock. You don’t have iron ochre, you don’t have that much sand. That will save you as much money as anything. Landscapers around here just use it to upsell, and because more is better, but it’s not. Regular slot tile.

There’s no reason to go any bigger than what your hooking into, if you’re going into an open ditch I can help you calculate what you need, or search for online water flow calculators. If you’re going in an open ditch you’ll need a permit from the county and $75.

If you want it to last, you need to understand how the tile needs supported, and that a flat bottom trench (hoe bucket) is the enemy of it lasting a long time. It needs supported on its haunches, in other words about 4:30 and 7:30, to maintain its roundness and strength. A few ways to do this, shovel a narrow v shaped trench in the bottom of your backhoe trench for the tile to lay in, or fill with gravel up to the haunches for support, or, and this is the way I like to do it when possible, use your hoe to take out the top half of the old clay, and then pop out the bottom pieces by hand and this leaves you the perfect spot to lay the new tile in - assuming two things, that you don’t need to go any deeper than the old and you’re no bigger than the old.

The problem with a trencher that you’ll rent is that it’s very hard to stay on the line and find anything tying in if you veer off. If you’re sure there’s nothing tying in and you want to go deeper a trencher could be a viable option, but nothing you rent will have great grade control nor a provision to lay the tile in on a clean shaped trench. It can still work, but it’s nice to have a trench wide enough to see and work in.

Gravel; in a pasture situation use all you can. People think big tractors compact the ground worse than grandpas farmall M, but they ain’t got nothin on horse’s hooves. Livestock will seal up that ground hard. Stone is the only answer, but most can’t afford to stone the whole trench to the top. Do it where you can, and you can at least get the water off the low spots in a hurry.

Start at the bottom, not the top. You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that, you’ll only do it once.

One last thing, tile floats. If there’s more water outside the tile than inside, up it comes, all the way to the top of you let it. Get some dirt on it asap, and get it backfilled before it rains.

Great advice. Suddenly your user name makes much more sense!