Tipton County is roughly 260 square miles of about as good a farm ground as Indiana has, and almost none of it moves. The high point of the whole county sits just south of Kempton at 932 feet and the low point is southeast of New Lancaster at 840, which is ninety two feet of relief spread across an entire county. Most people who live here have never noticed it. Every drainage decision in this county is made inside that ninety two feet.
Flat like this is not an absence of problems, it is a specific kind of problem. There is no slope to carry water off, so it either soaks in, sits, or moves through something somebody built. That is why so much of the water here moves through a regulated drain rather than a natural one, and why the surveyor's office is a working partner on projects instead of a formality. The county sits on a divide running east and west, generally along Division Road, so half the county sends water one direction and half the other, and knowing which half you are standing on changes the answer to where your water can legally go.
Big Cicero Creek is the name that comes up most, and it is governed by a joint drainage board that reaches across Boone, Clinton, Tipton and Hamilton counties. Work that ties into that system, or into any county regulated drain, goes through the proper channel before dirt moves. We would rather build the permit conversation into the quote than find it halfway through a job.
Underneath, the glacial material varies more than the surface suggests, running from under fifty feet thick in the northeast to over two hundred and fifty in the southwest. Practically that shows up as ground that behaves differently than the field next to it: one farm's tile runs beautifully and the neighbor's has a wet hole that nothing seems to fix. The settlers here started with eleven natural creeks and built everything else, which means most of the drainage in this county is engineered, and engineered things eventually need maintenance.
Around Tipton, Sharpsville, Windfall, Kempton, Goldsmith and Hobbs the work is the small-town mix: yards that pond because there is nowhere for water to go, lanes that have lost their base, pads for shops and barns, and the endless downspout and foundation grading that older housing stock generates. These are day jobs and two day jobs. They are also exactly the jobs a Kokomo or Indianapolis outfit will not drive out for, which is the whole reason we exist.
Every service, county-wide
Common Tipton County projects
Pattern tile and repairs to aging mains, waterway and outlet work tied into the regulated drain system, yard drainage on ground with almost no fall, gravel lanes, barn and shop pads, and grading around older homes in the towns.