Water volume and pressure question

   / Water volume and pressure question #31  
That's interesting... does your ground typically have sharp rocks? Black poly is used a lot here for sprinklers... one advantage is if there is some water in it during the winter it will expand instead of breaking like PVC will.

Red Clay is the most common type of dirt here, but there are some huge areas of sugar sand.

Eddie
 
   / Water volume and pressure question #33  
Big pipe vs. smaller pipe Q.

It was pointed out once on a This Old House show by Richard the plumber that a bigger drain pipe is not always better. A lady had a 2 inch drain pipe in her kitchen that had gotten sloughed up with junk. Richard pointed out with the big pipe that it didn't have the flow velocity to carry the slough along into the drain.

Same goes with a big supply pipe. You might get stuff in there (like algae, etc.) (I'm talking about rain water pipes, probably won't have this in fresh water) that doesn't slough off because of low velocity.

I've had no problems in 12-15 years of installing 1100 ft of poly pipe with the pipe actually plugging.

Had some animals bite it a couple places (patched with hose clamps and pieces of rubber) but no big gnawings.

Ralph
 
   / Water volume and pressure question #34  
Ralph, are you referring to cast iron drain pipes? I've never heard that there is such a thing as too big of a pipe, but cast iron is famous for needing enough slope to flow properly. The insides of those pipes will build up residue over time and can be an ongoing problem. PVC is so smooth on the inside that you can get away with a much flatter slope and never have an issue. A 2 inch PVC drain pipe will handle just about anything in a house except for some solids from a toilet.

Eddie
 
   / Water volume and pressure question #35  
You will get the same pressure at your faucet 225' feet away that you have at your main line, no matter if you run 1-1/2", 3/4" or 1/4" (when the faucet is off). It's only when you open the faucet do you get a pressure drop throughout the pipe length caused by THE WATER FLOWING through the resistance of the pipe. It's a trade off between GPM flow and pressure drop for a given pipe size.
 
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   / Water volume and pressure question #36  
Ground burrowing creatures are a problem here... so far they have not bothered my schedule 40 pvc pipe... they played havoc with my neighbor black poly pipe.

No idea as to how PEX would hold up... although some of the new gas lines seem very much like a PEX product...
 
   / Water volume and pressure question #37  
I have dealt with many water leaks from rodents with the black poly but never with the PVC . Other than rodents 90 percent of all problems I repair are at fittings which crack or break most likely from stress.
As for pex I think it will hold up well and excepts compression fittings . Most pipe recently has been resized so the out side diameters are all the same from 1 make to the other giving a smaller inside diameter to for eg. 3/4" pex or munc. tubing.
 
   / Water volume and pressure question #38  
For a 250' run the cost of the pipe is really insignificant compared to cost and time of the labor to dig the Trench and install it. While smaller would work fine I would go larger probably 1" minimum just because it costs peanuts to do so vs something smaller. We recently drilled a new well to fill a pond and do light irrigation and I plan on running 2" line from it. It will only be a couple hundred feet as well so why not go big.
 
   / Water volume and pressure question #39  
Ralph, are you referring to cast iron drain pipes? I've never heard that there is such a thing as too big of a pipe, but cast iron is famous for needing enough slope to flow properly. The insides of those pipes will build up residue over time and can be an ongoing problem. PVC is so smooth on the inside that you can get away with a much flatter slope and never have an issue. A 2 inch PVC drain pipe will handle just about anything in a house except for some solids from a toilet.



Eddie

Velocity has to be great enough to carry the solids. Increasing the diameter reduces velocity.
 
   / Water volume and pressure question #40  
I do not have the knowledge to answer a thought I had:- If the proposed offtake line is bigger than the existing line to the house (to allow for future add-ons as some have suggested), will the line to the house then become the offtake? Will the pressure in the house be reduced when the bigger proposed line is in use?
 

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