We are building a home on our rural property. There is already a vacation house on the property. That structure is going to become an office/workshop for our business, and a guest house.
We have a 1" PVC line coming in from the well pump to a pressure tank (44 gallons, I believe). The tank is in the basement of the existing house. The pressure side of the 1" line then goes to a whole house filter, reducing to 3/4". Pressure settings on the tank are 40/60psi. All works well, with decent water quality and good pressure at the existing fixtures.
Most of what I've read about serving multiple structures from a single well has basically said to treat the additional building as a fixture of the existing pressure tank. So, my current plan is to tee the 1" line after the pressure tank, and run a 1" line through the basement wall, trenched about 150' toward the new house site, where I'll terminate in a valve box with a cutoff valve. It's a slight downhill slope to the new house site. Perhaps a 5' to 6' drop from where the pressure tank sits in the basement of the first house.
Questions:
- What pipe to use for the supply line to the new home? Keep it rigid PVC? Pex or HPDE inside a PVC conduit? The soil is clay and does have rocks, so I don't think direct bury of a flexible pipe is ideal.
- Any reason I can't run a direct bury cat6 ethernet or fiber optic cable in the same trench? The two houses will be networked and sharing a broadband feed, and I prefer not to do that wirelessly.
- Our frost line (north Georgia) is somewhere between 6 and 10". I was planning on trenching to 18". Anything else to consider about that? Will that be ok if a heavy vehicle goes across the filled trench? I suspect all kinds of heavy vehicles will be driving all over the property during construction. I could route them to the build site in way that doesn't cross the water line tench, but the water line trench would still need to be able support normal vehicle/driveway traffic over the long term.
- At the valve box for a line servicing the new house, is PVC ok? Does it need any special consideration for protection from freezing, if the line feeding it is below the frost line, right up to the box?
- I suspect the power company will dig a parallel trench for 240v service, within about 10' of my water trench. Other than clearly marking my trench, any issues?
We have a 1" PVC line coming in from the well pump to a pressure tank (44 gallons, I believe). The tank is in the basement of the existing house. The pressure side of the 1" line then goes to a whole house filter, reducing to 3/4". Pressure settings on the tank are 40/60psi. All works well, with decent water quality and good pressure at the existing fixtures.
Most of what I've read about serving multiple structures from a single well has basically said to treat the additional building as a fixture of the existing pressure tank. So, my current plan is to tee the 1" line after the pressure tank, and run a 1" line through the basement wall, trenched about 150' toward the new house site, where I'll terminate in a valve box with a cutoff valve. It's a slight downhill slope to the new house site. Perhaps a 5' to 6' drop from where the pressure tank sits in the basement of the first house.
Questions:
- What pipe to use for the supply line to the new home? Keep it rigid PVC? Pex or HPDE inside a PVC conduit? The soil is clay and does have rocks, so I don't think direct bury of a flexible pipe is ideal.
- Any reason I can't run a direct bury cat6 ethernet or fiber optic cable in the same trench? The two houses will be networked and sharing a broadband feed, and I prefer not to do that wirelessly.
- Our frost line (north Georgia) is somewhere between 6 and 10". I was planning on trenching to 18". Anything else to consider about that? Will that be ok if a heavy vehicle goes across the filled trench? I suspect all kinds of heavy vehicles will be driving all over the property during construction. I could route them to the build site in way that doesn't cross the water line tench, but the water line trench would still need to be able support normal vehicle/driveway traffic over the long term.
- At the valve box for a line servicing the new house, is PVC ok? Does it need any special consideration for protection from freezing, if the line feeding it is below the frost line, right up to the box?
- I suspect the power company will dig a parallel trench for 240v service, within about 10' of my water trench. Other than clearly marking my trench, any issues?