Old Field Tile Under a Chesterfield Lot Can Carry Your Roof Water

Many Chesterfield lots were farm ground before they were subdivided, and the people who farmed them laid clay or concrete drain tile to pull standing water off low fields. Some of that tile was never removed. It was buried under the lawn, often a foot or two down, and it still runs toward a low point somewhere on the lot or beyond it. When a roof replacement starts, nobody on the crew knows it is there until a stake, a dumpster skid or a scaffold foot sinks into a soft line in the grass.

Town roofing

Older subdivisions in west St. Louis County were built over former cropland, and the drainage that kept those fields workable rarely appears on a survey or in a homeowner file. The tile is private property. It is buried, it does not show on the surface after the first season, and it can cross a side yard at an angle that has nothing to do with the house. A single line may run under the spot where the roof crew wants the dumpster and empty into a low corner near the back fence. You will not see any of that from the driveway.

Roofers working in the metro see this in two ways. The first is a soft patch that gives under a ladder foot or a pallet jack. The second is a strip of grass that stays green in August and runs in a straight line that does not match the slope of the lot. Either one is worth a question before the first bundle comes off the truck.

Freeze and thaw matter here. Clay soil in the St. Louis area heaves in winter and settles again in spring. An old tile joint that was already cracked can open further after a hard freeze, and the opening may stay hidden until the soil above it gives way. A crew that set a scaffold leg over that joint in March may find the leg has dropped by April. That is a reason to mark the tile location before the work starts, not after the first load lands.

Tile also connects to roof water. A downspout that discharges onto the lawn may send water straight into an open joint, and a tile line that was cut off near the foundation may push water back toward the wall during a heavy rain. Gutter and downspout routing belongs in the roof plan for the same reason. If your downspouts were redirected at some point, check whether the old tile runs under the new outlet.

Tile lines often cross lot lines, so the neighbor's roof water may drain through your yard, and yours may drain through theirs. Ask the neighbors on both sides whether they have ever dug up a drain line, or whether a low spot has ever been filled along the shared fence. A neighbor who remembers a flooded corner after a storm has given you a location you can check.

Call 811 before any digging on the lot. The utility locate covers gas, electric, water and sewer lines that belong to the utilities. It does not mark private drain tile, which belongs to the homeowner, so the locator will not show it. That gap is why the question has to go to the roofer and to you, not only to the utility.

What it costs

A buried tile line changes the bill only when it turns into work. If the crew finds the tile before setup and moves a staging point, the change is small. If the crew finds it after a dumpster has collapsed a run, the bill can include repair of the tile, regrading of the lawn, replacement of sod, and the days the job sat idle while the hole was dealt with. None of those items is a roof line, which is why they belong in the bid as their own lines or in the written exclusions.

Ask whether the bid carries a line for hand digging or probing at the staging points, and whether it carries a line for backfill and sod. Some bids leave these out and treat them as the homeowner's yard. Others write a unit price for each probe or each opened run of tile. Either way, the number should be on paper before the crew arrives. This page does not give a dollar figure, because the cost depends on how deep the tile sits, how much lawn is involved and how the soil behaves on that particular lot.

What to ask

1. Where will the dumpster, the pallet of shingles and the scaffold feet sit, and has anyone checked those spots for buried drain tile?
2. Will the crew probe the staging points with a rod or dig them by hand before any heavy equipment arrives?
3. If the crew hits a tile line, who stops work, who picks the new staging point, and who gets the call?
4. Does the written scope include backfill, sod and regrading for any tile that is opened, or is that work excluded?
5. Where will the downspouts discharge during the job, and does that route cross any old tile line?
6. Will the crew record any soft, wet or unusually green strips in the job photo log before the first tear-off?

You can answer the first two questions yourself before the roofer comes. Walk the yard after a rain and look for the green line, the soft patch, or the spot where water stands longer than it should. Photograph it with a phone whose date is set correctly. A dated photo is easy to hand to the roofer and hard to dispute later.

Keys Roofing documents the damage and the site conditions, puts a written scope with photos and measurements in your hands, and attends as the contractor on the day of the work. Whether tile repair or lawn restoration is part of a Keys scope is a question for the written bid, and you should have that answer in writing before you sign. The Keys office line is (314) 220-2333.

Once a crew has set a dumpster on a patch that looked fine, moving it costs time and sometimes a second delivery. Ask first, probe second, and write the answer down. That sequence takes an afternoon. Skipping it can cost the lawn and a week of the schedule.