Any ideas on how to get a water line in a brick building with a concrete floor?

[4570Man]

I have a 30x40 garage which serves as my wood shop. When my dad built it he apparently didn't think running water was necessary. At the time he was probably right because the house was 20 feet away. The problem is the house is now a rental. I can still use the outside faucet on the house, but that isn't much fun in the winter. I was thinking it might be possible to dig up under the floor a short distance with a shovel and then drill through the floor on the top side. Does anyone have any more ideas, and is my idea a dumb one.

 

[dstig1]

Should work, but no matter what you do, it is going to be a PITA, as you know. Run the line deep enough that frost is not a problem, but if you have to come up near the shed too shallow, then insulate above it with some XPS that is 18-24" wide above the tubing (insulation buried under the dirt).

 

[4570Man]

The frost line is pretty shallow here. Most water lines are about 18" deep and as shallow as 12".

 

[oosik]

Saw a fellow run water and natural gas lines into a building. Dug the trench up to and exposed the foundation wall and footing. Opened a 1' x 1' hole thru the foundation just above the footing. Went into the building and opened another 1' x 1' hole thru the concrete floor, about two feet in from the building wall. Dug out the dirt so you could see from the hole inside the building out thru the hole in the foundation wall. Ran the pipes and filled the hole with expandable foam insulation. Since the water & gas lines were going to be inside cabinets, inside the building - he only troweled the expanded foam smooth inside the building and never re-concreted the floor. Worked like a champ for him.

 

[Ed of all trades]

I would just drill the hole through the footer and cut the hole in the floor like Oosik said. It would be a lot of work to knock out the footer 1' x 1' and there is no real advantage to it. Go to the rental place and get a big concrete drill/ hammer. Make sure it does both. It is not a very hard job but it is not fun. I would just patch the floor with crete. Ed

 

[farmer2009]

Make sure the hole you cut in the floor gives you enough room to work. Rent concrete saw then sledgehammer out the inside. Run pipe in and fill hole back to within about 2-3 inches of floor. Repair floor with a motor or Portland Cement. Makes any future repairs easy to bust out with sledgehammer.

 

[Trials]

You won't need to dig very deep if your water pipe has a heat trace cable inside it just make sure you power it off the rental units hydro.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Is the floor reinforced? I would want to avoid undermining my slab. I may choose to do the same thing some day, but my shop just has a floating slab (reinforced). Still, I don't want to dig out dirt from under it.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've done this fairly often when remodeling homes. Some of my tunnels under the house have been the biggest part of the job, especially the drain lines!!!

The bigger the hole in the concrete you make, the easier it's going to be. I have a SDS Max hammer drill with a 1 1/2 inch bit that I can fit a 3/4 inch PVC pipe through, but most of the time I like to run half in PEX through a one inch hole in the concrete and then fill around the pipe with expanding foam.

You didn't say if you are putting in a drain line. For those, I use my circular saw with a masonry blade to cut my square that I'm going to remove. Then I use my SDS Max hammer drill with a point tip to jackhammer out the concrete. It's slow until you get through the concrete, then making it bigger goes quickly. Sometimes I'll hurry it up by drilling a few holes through the concrete before jack hammering it.

 

[truckdiagnostics]

What Eddie said but I would think 1/2 bath with slop sink. Raise the resale value also. Your most of the way there already and have the equipment there when you put the water line in. I would use a grinder pit and pump it to the house. May not be to code? to put sewer line and water line, in same trench?, even if you had to dig two, you don't have to go down that deep. Cutting concrete is not my idea of a good time but it is not that bad and it is in your shop. If it has re-bar I have saw cut into bite size chunks, drill hole in the center so that you can pick with the tractor. Then I have used them for side walk stepping stones.