Need help / advice with water line ???

[pharmvet]

I ran some 2000 ft fo 2" slip joint this spring for my future house site. I got it installed and covered, but am just now getting around to installing 2 frost free faucets on the ends (I split it and will have water at 2 locations. I covered the pipe in the trench (4 ft deep) except for the last 10 feet of each end. I left the pipe bent up and sticking out of the trench. My coop put in my meter and ran some water back in the summer. This evening I cut the pipe to proper length and began the installation process of my faucets (gravel underneath ect) I noticed that there was some standing water, and my pipe (inside) was coated with a thin layer of green slime as far down the pipe as I could see.

HOW DO I GET THIS OUT ??? My plan (unless you guys tell me otherwise) is to attach a flexible hose (slip it over the end of the pipe and clamp it) and get it up out of the hole and turn on my water for an hour or so to try to flush out the green layer.

Do you think this will help? I also considered pouring some concentrated bleach water backward into the pipe and letting it sit for a day or so.

If I attach my faucet now, will the slime clog it up when it breaks loose from the walls?

Can I ever really hope to get this green layer out?

Any and all advice, suggestions, told you so, etc welcomed. thanks

 

[KYErik]

If it is a thin layer, it won't clog anything. Folks with well water usually have a harmless bacterial slime coating in their pipes and in their toilet tanks.

This stuff can be really sticky so a 10 second flush would likely get just as much out as a 1 hour flush.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

With 2000' of 2" unless you can get full flow from the coop main you will probably not get enough velocity to scour it out. The meter is probably only 3/4 or 1" which puts an orfice in it. Meters are sized for expected demand flow not full flow unless undersized pipe to start with. The pipe holds a lot of water/bleach solution but I would do it. Hope you can drain it out on either end and vent so it all drains to the low end. Kill it and then it will gradualy scour out over time. Algae growth is common in large lines with low flow as it gets a chance to grow. Put a 5 micron filter on the house end so particles do not clog orfices and strainers.

Ron

 

[JD 4520]

Just clean it up as you can and cap it and go forward. You may always have this issue if you could look I our line with well water without treatment. Not an issue. Regular use will keep it as clean as it needs to be.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Second thought here. Did you sanitize the line after you installed it. If not that's where the slime originated. The plumbing code requires a sanitizing solution in all new installations for that very reason. There is not enough chlorine in water systems to kill all the initial bacteria in new installations by flushing. Most well systems are not chlorinated and that is why the tend to grow slime over time if not used steadily.
Sorry to rain on your parade.

Ron

 

[CurlyDave]

I ran some 2000 ft fo 2" slip joint this spring for my future house site.

HOW DO I GET THIS OUT ??? My plan (unless you guys tell me otherwise) is to attach a flexible hose (slip it over the end of the pipe and clamp it) and get it up out of the hole and turn on my water for an hour or so to try to flush out the green layer....

Do you think this will help? I also considered pouring some concentrated bleach water backward into the pipe and letting it sit for a day or so.

Any and all advice, suggestions, told you so, etc welcomed. thanks

I don't think you are going to get enough water velocity to remove the green slime, but give it a try anyway. It is cheap to try. Just be sure you have a good way of handling the water that will come out of the pipe. It could make an impressive mudhole.

Bleach will get it out, but think about what you are doing. I calculate 2000' of 2" pipe as 340 gallons of water. You are not going to kill the slime in this much water with a couple of jugs of Chlorox. If you dilute the bleach with water to 10% bleach you will need 34 gallons of bleach. Not out of sight financially, but not insignificant. (I am not suggesting 10% bleach as the right concentration, it is just a ball park number I made up out of thin air.)

Think about how you are going to get this into the pipe. Mix it in a big tank? Make up several batches in a smaller tank? Meter it into a flowing water stream? (This is certainly possible, but doing it with any accuracy is going to require thousand$ worth of industrial equipment.)

How are you going to dispose of the bleach solution when you are done?

 

[Bikewanderer]

Not sure where you got 34 gallons of bleach!

Your pipe holds about 340 gallons of water - no different really than a conventional well setup. You need to shock chlorinate it. It shouldn't take more than a gallon or two. My well holds 2000 gallons and I recall needing 6-7 gallons of bleach to do it. Remember that household bleach is already diluted when doing your calculations.

CWW-How to Shock Chlorinate a Well or Cistern

Flush the crap out first, then fill with a fresh water and chlorine mix. Can you get to both sides of the pipe to get the water out? I'm thinking of something like a shop vac in one end and a ping pong ball in the other to seal the pipe off. It would take forever and a day to get it done from one end boiling it out with a vacuum pump but that's technically an option too.

 

[greasemonkeyok]

They make pipe pigs for larger waterlines, so you might ask around to see if someone makes a pig for a 2" line. All you really need is a brush that scours the dirt and slime to help break it up.