water pipe installation advice

[stumpfield]

I'm about to run approx. 2000' of 2" schedule 40 PVC pipe from my water tank to the home site. Water tank is located about 100' above the home site for gravity feed. Is there any special connection/design I have to consider and be aware of? or it's just as simple as trench and bury the pipe along the road like typical sprinkler pipe installations??? any advice is greatly appreciated. It would great to be able to learn how the water company did theirs.

 

[oliver28472]

Lay a wire in with the pipe so the pipe can be found later with a metal detector. The pipe has to be below the frost line. I think that's 18" in NC. Where are you?

 

[JRobyn]

The guys that ran my waterline usually do all of the local county waterline work, and they used the same materials and methods for me. My line was also 2" PVC, slipjoint. I was expecting them to be very careful about depth, backfill materials and tamping, etc. Nah. Saw the trench, heave in the pipe. If the trench partially filled in with trenching debris before they got the pipe in it, no problem, as long at it was still at least 18" - 24" deep. Backfilled with the sawn rockdust/dirt, pushed in with a dozer, and when completely filled, run over the whole thing a few more times with the dozer. That was it!

But I had several branch lines put in for hydrants, and the lack of good backfilling and tamping caused a problem that they don't usually have when just running continuous straight lines. Several of the branches blew out a slip joint when the line was pressured up. In your case, high pressure and branch lines probably won't be an issue, and you should have no problems.

- Jay

 

[chh]

I have laid down about 2000 to 2200 feet of the o-ring pipe. If you use it be sure and get the lube that goes on the O-rings, You can use dishwashing soap(cheaper) but the lube is better. On one line that I did was 500' with about a 12' drop with a 2 hp centrifucal pump setup on the end to boost pressure and volume going into the barn. I kept getting air in the lines and tripping the pressure switches out. After consulting with another plumber,(instead of the one that just kept saying"it should be working") finally figuired out that it was pulling air past the o-rings. Had to run direct burial wire back up the trench(it wasn't completely filled in thank goodness), put a submersible pump in the pond and turn it into a pressure system. So if you are going to have a pump on the system you might want to consider a holding tank before the pump or use glue joint pipe. I have used the black roll pipe at different times also but, you really need to watch how you lay it if there are rocks in the soil. Rocks in contact with the pipe as water went thru eventually will put a hole in the line. Most of the o-ring pipe that I put in has been in the ground now for 14 years. No troubles so far with leaks.

Good luck

 

[ultrarunner]

Is anyone familiar with what I would describe as a flexible 1" hose used for underground water service line. I've asked my local supply houses and they have not heard of it.

I've seen it being used in Austria. The end fittings are stamped "Made in USA". The fittings are blue painted metal on the outside with one end threaded normal 1" and the other end has was looks like about 50 small internal tacks that grip the hose when it is shoved in.

The water company said they switched to it in around 1980 and it eliminated all broken pipe issues related to freezing and minor ground shifting.

No underground joints and very flexible... sounds perfect for your California project.

 

[tommu56]

Tom

Does it have to be pvc?

I would use polypropylene coiled hose it is a lot more forgiving then pvc

If it freezes it dosen't bust and dosen't crack if it get's hit with a rock on back fill.


"edit" here is a link

Oil Creek Plastics .::. Water Pipe

Tom also

 

[stumpfield]

Tom

Does it have to be pvc?

I would use polypropylene coiled hose it is a lot more forgiving then pvc

If it freezes it dosen't bust and dosen't crack if it get's hit with a rock on back fill.


"edit" here is a link

Oil Creek Plastics .::. Water Pipe

Tom also

I already bought all the PVC pipes. A home depot near my city home is closing down and selling everything at 60% off. I bought all the 10' length 2" PVC pipes ( the 60% discount is worth the trouble to double the number of joints I have to made.)

I'm in a warmer climate. It might occasionally freeze the exposed portion of the pipe but not enough to cause any damage. Anything buried below the surface is enough to protect from freezing.

 

[Jimbrown]

I layed 1300 ft my self to my house. It works just fine. I would reccommed that you pressure up the system for a few days before covering it up. with that many joints you will have at least one that leaks. Lay the pipe out beside the trench and glue it together and then roll in a couple of hundered feet at a time into the trench. it really goes fast once you get the technique down. Buy good glue. It should be marked medium duty or the such. The plain old clear stuff sold for most PVC applications is not as good. The kind they sell here is grey in color. I found the blue and orange stuff to be pretty poor also.

 

[3RRL]

Tom,
I know you are in a warmer climate but FWIW, I'd consider burying it anyway. Wrap with insulation any exposed pipe too. You probably saw what happened to my pvc pipe? I'm in a warmer climate too, but last year we had a record freeze dating back to 1971. All my pvc pipe froze and shattered. Hundreds of residents had pipes freeze and shatter in town for the same reason. Mine was only a 1600' run, but nevertheless, it was no fun having to repair it.

tommu,
Interesting link you posted. I am going to look into using some of that for my log home project.
Thanks,

 

[tommu56]

Rob
this is standard well drop pipe around here.

We used that plastic at my old cabin down the mountin from the spring laying on the ground.

The only issues we had were deer hoofs would cut it and if some one didn't leave the faucit drip it would freeze. It would thaw out in spring and mabe have to replace a coupling or something.
Wwe did run it in a zig zag so if we had repair we could cut out bad and pull ends together and connect it back up.

Every time we went up to check pipe or clean spring we would heave a couple of rocks on top of line to keep hoof damage to minimum.

tom