At Home In The Woods

[ruralruss]

Garden Water Line Question
Hey guys. I have asked the grading contractor to give me an estimate for running a water line from the house to the garden area. I told him I wanted two 1" PVC lines buried 2' deep. The second line running to the garden is a spare in case the first line breaks. I'm guessing we are talking around 200' of trench. I would like to run the water line to the garden before we put down topsoil and seed our yard.

Question #1: While the trench is open, can you think of anything else I should put in the trench?

In addition, I would like to be able to shut off the garden water line close to the house. The picture above shows where the water line that runs from the well meets the house. The second pipe is a spare. There is a T-connection with a 2 foot long pipe capped off. The capped off pipe was put there in preparation for running a water line to the garden area. These pipes have long been covered up about 2 feet below ground.

Question #2: I would like to put a valve in the waterline below ground to prevent freezing. Do you have any idea how to do this? Obviously I need to access the valve in order to operate it.

Thanks in advance,
Obed

Definitely run electric to it. You can get a big jump start on the garden if you build a small greenhouse. You will want a fan in it. Also you might need to run a small heater if you get some real cold temps. You will need something more than the standard house wire because of the distance and it needs to be rated for in ground. We ran a 50 amp service to our garden area. We ran 220 to it in a small breaker box. It was a BIG wire! It has turned out very helpful.

 

[dstig1]

I know I'm crazy, but the fact that I have curb valves and water valve boxes on all my water lines must prove it.:laughing: It does make it easy when you need or want to work on a line though. Remove the lid from the box, drop the valve handle over the valve, give a quarter turn on the handle, and replace the lid. Done.

Hey, if the straightjacket fits...

 

[dcyrilc]

Hey, if the straightjacket fits...

It does.:laughing:

 

[LoveTheSmellofDiesel]

Back on your root covering situation, not a new idea, but hold back a payment or two for the amount it would cost for the seat time to uncover your roots. My guess that the deafness / listening issue would get rectified real quick. That was the only way I could get some of our contractor's attention. Then I would decide if I wanted to cut another check to make up the difference I left off the first time. Did this twice and every time there was a questionable item I got asked before hey followed their own ideas first... :thumbsup:

Beautiful job you have done all around!

 

[eepete]

I'd put a 1" conduit in the trench. If you can't be right, and can't predict the future, you can at least be flexible.

If the garden area is near the driveway or if you think that some year you'd like to put in a security camera, put in a 2nd 1" conduit for low voltage stuff.

Should be less than $50 to put two 1" conduits in. Conduit pricing has really jumped in the last 4 years, it's almost doubled. For the 200' run, while the 3/4" is tempting cost wise the 1" will be a much easier pull. But if it's a nice straight run you could save a few bucks and use 3/4 for the low voltage stuff. I'd stick with 1" for AC in case the "ruralruss" approach unfolds.

Be sure to glue the caps on to keep dirt out- dirt makes the pull much harder.

Pete

 

[Obed]

Electric and low voltage sound like great ideas. I asked the grading contractor to give me an estimate for running two 1" PVC water lines, a 1" conduit for potential low voltage, and an underground rated power cable. I just need to decide whether to put a 10/2 (120V) or 10/3 (240V) cable. A 10 AWG cable should give me about 15 Amps for a 220 foot cable based on the online cable size calculators. I need to check out how much 220 ft of wire will cost. I imagine we may need an electric fence around the garden to keep the deer out.

Thanks for the input,
Obed

 

[Obed]

Yesterday we rented a tree chipper for $500 for a 24 hour rental. This machine can chip logs up to 12" in diameter. I was amazed at how well the chipper worked. Using his highlift, the grading subcontractor fed the chipper 30 ft logs. The trees were all cut up before hand and ready for feeding into chipper. It only took about 5 hours to chip up all our trees and logs that were 12" or less in diameter. I would guess that about 35 trees got chipped up.

Renting a chipper was my wife's idea. We had originally planned to burn the trees. However, somehow my wife got the idea that we could chip up the trees and use them for mulch, gardening, and landscaping. We avoided having to build a large fire and risk setting our woods on fire.

One of the contractors who gave us a bid for the grading work was timid about burning the trees because of our woods and recommened hauling off the trees in dumpsters. I told that contractor that we weren't in the middle of a subdivision and didn't give the dumpster idea much thought. We also didn't hire that guy.

Now we have a very large pile of chips. We'll need to turn/stir up the chips periodically and try to keep the pile from developing a heat and catching on fire.

We still have a very large stack of logs that I will eventually cut up for firewood.

 

[eepete]

Just for grins, you might want to compare the price of a direct burry #10 cable with conduit and runs of #10 THHN cable. I've hi-potted the conduit, and it's good to at least 7500 volts (all I can test up to). The direct bury cable is a 600V rated wire (like the THHN cable) in a jacket which I suspect is not as thick as the conduit wall and so it would have a lower breakdown voltage.

So with the conduit you might have less problems if there was a lightning strike on a tree or ground somewhere near that 200 foot run. You also get the win that you can fix things or pull in another cable if need be.

So compare the prices and think about the trade offs between the two approaches to getting power to the garden. Overall, I think you're on the right track here with what you're putting in the trench.

When we did our house, I had 3 areas around the house that were at 100, 160, and 200' away where I ran a 3/4" black PE water line, conduit for a light on a pole, conduit for an outlet (15 amp, ran #12), and low voltage conduit. The idea was that whatever came down the road, I could connect it to the house. The main water line to the road also had power, lighting for the driveway, low voltage conduit, and the phone line in conduit. The water line was at 18" and everything else was at 3 to 5 feet deep. So my biases are clear, but a trench with just a water line is a missed opportunity for some neat project down the road.

Pete

 

[CurlyDave]

Obed:

How many irrigation zones do you intend to have in your garden?

The last time I looked at this, which was 20 years ago, the cost of the wire was so much higher than the cost of pipe that I saved money by putting my timer at the house and running individual pipes to each sprinkler zone.

 

[weldingisfun]

Obed, have you ever thought of selling your chips for mulch?
We chip the branches from our cedars then advertise on Craigslist and sell the mulch for $8.50 a yard. Give it a try. Offset some of the chipper rental cost.