What Is a Silt Fence?
A Silt Fence is a permeable geotextile fabric that is trenched into the ground, backfilled, and held up with stakes. The material will catch various soil particles disloged by rain events, but will allow silt to pass through it. Silt Fence should always be used as your last line of defence to retain sediment from leaving your site. Silt Fence can also be used as a perimeter control on your construction site. Many high visibility colors are available, which makes silt fence an ideal replacement to construction fence in lower traffic public places.
Why use a silt fence?
Silt fence should always be used to reduce your release of sediment to the environment from your construction site. You should always consider some form of erosion control practice in combination with your silt fence, to reduce the amount of sediment that your silt fence will have to deal with. Maintenance as with any of the sediment or erosion control practice is key. Silt fences should always be inspected after every rain even, and trapped sediment should be removed when it reached 1/3 the height of your installed silt fence.
What are Straw Wattles?
Straw Wattles also known as Stenlogs are a new comer to the sediment control scene. They are simply a polypropylene sock filled with various fibres (most commonly straw, but also wood, compost, rock and plastic), which is staked or pinned to the ground to create a speed bump for sediment laden water leaving a construction site. The theory is that construction site run-off will come into contact with a straw wattle, momentarily have to slow down to flow over it, and thus drop some of its sediment load. The nice thing about the straw filled straw wattles is that they are 100% biodegradable and photodegradable and once your site is seeded and mulched can simply be left in place to break down. Again as with all other sediment control devices, maintenance is key, and they should be inspected after every rain even, and sediment removed when it reached 1/3 the height of the straw wattle.
When would you use a straw wattle?
Straw Wattles should be used to control perimeter sediment control on your construction site. They also can be utilized as a slope interrupter, or to break up the length of a slope you are trying to vegetate, thus slowing run-off and reducing your erosion potential. Straw Wattles can also be used in combination with bioengineering practices, such as willow staking, to provide pockets to place topsoil for planting.