Best way to get water 300' away.

[_RaT_]

hows about 3/4 poly into an elevated tank, fill it up at night and gravity feed drips during day. this way you can cheaply add fertilizer when you want

Many drips works best with about 20 PSI and there are some inexpensive fertilizer injectors that you could easly substitute for a tank. Poly line would probably be quite sufficient but in looking at the friction pressure loss charts, poly is higher, about 1 psi greater per 100' with 10 gpm flow in a 3/4" line. The main reason is a higher drag index.

A 3/4" poly with 10 GPM has a PSI loss of 8.82 psi per 100 feet, 3/4" sch 40 PVC is 7.77 psi per 100'. Multiply those numbers by three and you can quickly see why pipe sizing is critical to minimizing psi loss. By going to 1" poly/sch 40 PVC those numbers drop to 2.73 psi/hundred feet and 2.40 psi/per hundred feet respectively. With larger pipe you also gain by virtue of the fact that for a identical water velocity, the speed that the water flows through the pipe measured in feet per second or FPS, you have less psi drop typically measured per 100 feet. When you size a water line, you do it trying to keep velocities under 5 feet per second. This minimizes psi drop and damage to valves, 90's etc. Rat....

 

[Harvster]

Thanks for all the good advice folks. Although, I now have so many good ideas that I'm not sure which is the best . I can easily see several of the solutions working quite well. I guess it may come down to what's readily available in terms of pipes and fittings and what the total cost may be.

 

[mjarrels]

Dang Rat,

That math makes my head hurt.

mark

 

[_RaT_]

Dang Rat,

That math makes my head hurt.

mark

Sorry, I got carried away.

 

[_RaT_]

Thanks for all the good advice folks. Although, I now have so many good ideas that I'm not sure which is the best . I can easily see several of the solutions working quite well. I guess it may come down to what's readily available in terms of pipes and fittings and what the total cost may be.

PVC or Poly in 1" and your good. Bury it now and avoid UV deterioration. Possible 3/4" electrical conduit for a 120V time clock or go low voltage 9 volt battery valve for future control of automatic valves.

 

[SLOBuds]

I'll give a 2nd vote to running a temporary line this year, until you see how you will use the area.

The reason why that is a good idea is that you will make a war-zone mess when you trench the ground. Then one year later you will need to do some more grading in the places where the trench sunk in from settling. But trenching and laying pipe is something that you only want to do once.

Last year I ran about 2400 feet of 2" schedule 40, 3' in the ground. The poor little 10 acre parcel did indeed look like a war zone. But I have owned the place for 4 years now and I spent much of those years analyzing and designing an irrigation strategy. So I was ready to do the work last year and it turned out very good.

The 4 days we spent on trenching and assembly was an activity that I will remember forever. My bones and muscles are sore to this day! At the end though, we are ready to move out on the rest of our projects needing irrigation. And we did string wires for valves as well.

But once the trench is open, you want to get everything in there you need. And you don't want ever to have any problems, so all of the work is done with extra care.

We also use quite a bit of drip irrigation. Just fyi those lines will carry more than enough water for your temporary 300' run.

Good luck.

 

[avorancher]

I would bury sched 40 PVC as large as I could afford to the garden site (to reduce friction loss), then run the black poly on the surface along the garden rows. Use a small pressure regular at the beginning of the poly to keep pressure around 20-25 psi, which is all the poly connectors will handle and is what the drip emitters are designed to handle. If you don't have enough water volume, you can put a storage tank at the garden site or do like me and water in zones.

The poly is great for making changes as your crops change, but not so great for covering long distances due to the friction loss that many have already explained. Your in PA which may have hills. If you have to go uphill much at all, your pressure needs will increase dramatically. The internet has "head" charts to figure out elevation.

I use 3" sched 40 in several runs over 1200 feet long, then run poly to thousands of individual trees. Works great as long as the coyotes don't chew up the poly.

 

[Doc_Bob]

Use a hose (s) at first, see if it works, then go with a pipe later on.
Bob

 

[WayneB]

I ran 1" black poly a little over 200 feet with no problems. The pressure and flow rate was fine. If you don't put it in the ground and the water is not running you will have some very warm water in the pipe during the summer months.

The first year I purchased cheap hoses and had many fail during the year. Only advice I can give you is to make sure you turn off the water source and open the hose to prevent expansion when the sun hits the hose.

The next year I went ahead and purchase Poly. Much cheaper and in the end much stronger.

I run poly to our different gardens and have found that when I have had a failure it was pretty easy to fix. There are all kinds of fittings available and adding a tee is really simple and quick. The money does add up when you start adding shut-offs, timers and such, but it is flexible.

Wayne

 

[turnkey4099]

I'll give a 2nd vote to running a temporary line this year, until you see how you will use the area.

The reason why that is a good idea is that you will make a war-zone mess when you trench the ground. Then one year later you will need to do some more grading in the places where the trench sunk in from settling. But trenching and laying pipe is something that you only want to do once.

Last year I ran about 2400 feet of 2" schedule 40, 3' in the ground. The poor little 10 acre parcel did indeed look like a war zone. But I have owned the place for 4 years now and I spent much of those years analyzing and designing an irrigation strategy. So I was ready to do the work last year and it turned out very good.

The 4 days we spent on trenching and assembly was an activity that I will remember forever. My bones and muscles are sore to this day! At the end though, we are ready to move out on the rest of our projects needing irrigation. And we did string wires for valves as well.

<snip>

Good luck.

I ran a new pipeline 1/4 mile to the community well. Me, my brother and a small ditch witch did the whole thing in 1/2 day. The only ground disturbance was the narrow trench line. Of course that was one trench and no side branches so...

Harry K