Help with water supply line

[joeu235]

I've searched all over and can't find an answer. My house will be 2000 feet from the rural water supply. Standard house...wife, two kids, no pool. What size pipe do I need to run? Unfortunately, there is no shallow water for a well and any water is 3000 feet down.

 

[oosik]

Wow! That is one really long run. I think your best bet is to contact a local engineer, familiar with rural water systems. You could be talking about having to run a fairly large line to maintain flow & pressure. There are going to be several "areas of concern" that will need to be addressed to provide an adequate supply.

Things such as: do you have a utility easement to install the pipe in, does the rural water supply have sufficient supply & pressure to handle an extension such as this, what sort of maintenance agreement is required to maintain this extension, who will be responsible to maintain the extension. Then you can consider what size pipe, will the rural water system require that the extension & any peripheral equipment be installed by a licensed contractor.

The bottom line - if this is a "doable" project - what is it going to cost.

 

[Handloader109]

I ran a 1"pvc line about a thousand feet and up about 50 ft of elevation in MS. My pressure on the second floor was still decent. My current home in AR has a 1500ft run with no elevation and is 1"black plastic..... Not my choice, but works.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Bar Napkin engineering indicates a minimum of 1 1/2" pipe unless you need fire fighting capability. In that case consult your provider and the serving fire dept. If it was mine; for the price difference I would use 2" probably over engineering. Volume difference between 1" and 2" is a factor of 4. When digging get all those other utilities in the same xcavation. Seabees always over engineer when they can.

Ron

 

[Qapla]

What is the weather like there, especially in the winter?

We have 1,000 feet of mainline that is run in 1 1/2' PVC. Ours is what is referred to as "thin wall" (class/schedule 200 as opposed to Schedule 40) ... but then, I live where it does not freeze deep in the ground. Thin wall PVC can be purchased from irrigation supply companies and is less expensive than schedule 40, comes in 20' lengths with bells so no connectors are needed for the run and flows more water. Where you come up out of the ground, use schedule 40 (they both use the same connectors).

I would think 1 1/2 inches would work.

 

[Qapla]

it double posted so I deleted the double

 

[KevT]

The first question is how big of a meter is the water dept willing to put in? 1" should be okay, PSI is PSI, you loose that with head pressure, so as long as you are not going up... Just my opinion.

 

[powerscol]

I would recommend 2" minimum depending on the pressure at your tap.

Search of a flow through pipe calculator. There are many on the web. If you are going to water a lawn or garden you will need a flow of at least 5 GPM (gallons per minute) at 30 PSI.
I would recommend design for 10 GPM at 30 PSI if possible. There is also a table that will tell you how many feet to add for bends and fittings too. Be sure to add that in.

Talk to you local pipe supply places as they too have tables. If the pressure is low at the tap you can always add in a booster pump at the house. It that is the case, up sizing the line more can help. Your water supply company can also help. The tap can be smaller, but your trying to reduce line loss, so a bigger line is needed.

PS - I am and engineer too - hope this helps.

 

[Cord]

Wow. Your friction loss will kill any potential pressure. If an engineer looks at this I'd betcha you'll need a 4" pipe or multiple booster pumps. Obviously that's not going to be cost effective. The other solution would be to place a pressure tank with a booster pump at the house to provide some reserve capacity. Even then, you'll run the risk of running out of water during periods of high usage.

 

[Thomas]

All good advice given,if I...I would go next size up for piping thinking of future just in case.

 

[handirifle]

You might look into running a 2" or so, line to a storage tank, about half way, and maybe a booster pump of yours from that tank to another tank nearby the house. A run of 1000ft on level ground isn't that bad when filling a tank. Getting 10-20gpm for a tank fill is a piece of cake that way. My well is 400ft deep. Before our 3 yr drought here, my static level was at 60ft, but I bet it's about 200 by now. My storage tank is over 600ft from my well and my submersible runs it from the well to the tank. My tank is about 20-30ft above ground level of the well, so the pump is pushing 600ft with 230ft of head. With good water supplies I get about 8-10gpm from the well, but last time I checked It was giving steady 5 gpm AT MY TANK. I have a booster pump at my tank that supplies the house. The line from my submersible to the tank is 1" PVC and I ran 1" from tank to house.

My booster pump is a jet pump, like my submersible, but only because fire suppression system was required when we built and his was the only style that met the flow/pressure requirements.

With a staged system I think it's doable. But it won't be cheap.

 

[EddieWalker]

Several things to consider. It doesn't really matter how much pressure you have at the street or how much elevation change that you have since you will have to live with it no matter what it is. What needs to be your biggest concern is how much movement in the soil do you have? At 2,000 feet, the soil can move an inch to several inches. Some types of clay here in Texas move an inch in less then a hundred feet!!!!

There are several ways to deal with soil movement, but first you have to understand how it moves. When dirt gets wet and then freezes, it moves. This expansion is exactly like an ice cube in a tray. In my area, it might not happen all year, but then in other years, the ground is saturated and the ground moves a lot.

If possible, dig down below the frost line to keep movement to a minimal. In CA, where I'm from and worked, we would have to put a 12 inch layer of sand on the bottom of the trench, lay the pipe in the middle with 12 inches of sand on both sides, and another 12 inches of sand above it. This cuts down on the movement of the pipe from the surrounding soil.

Almost all water like breaks are from the pipes being pulled apart from the soil moving. To deal with this, pipes are gasketed. Which means one end slides into the other end and a gasket creates the seal. In some pipes, they can slide half a foot in and out and not leak!!! From what I've seen and worked on, 2 inches is the smallest size water line available. You might find smaller, I just have never seen it.

Given what I know about pipes in the ground, I would go with a gasketed 2 inch water line from the street to your house. I would take into consideration your soil type and how cold it gets before deciding how deep I would go, and if I was going to add sand around the pipe.

 

[EddieWalker]

Then once you get the pipe installed and the water turned on, I would test to see what your water pressure is. 60 pounds is ideal. A little less is ok, but there is a point it's too low. If you are at that point, there are pumps and storage tanks that you can add to the line to create more water pressure.

If your line goes downhill, you can increase the amount of water pressure you have at the house to more then what it started out with at the street. Then you will need a reducer to get it down to 60 pounds. Too much water pressure will allow water to run through your toilets non stop. You wont hear it or notice it until you get your water bill!!! It's not uncommon to have too much pressure and end up with a bill for 60,000 gallons in one month.

Easiest way to check water pressure is to buy a gauge in the sprinkler section of Home Depot or Lowes and attach it to a water spicket. Turn on the water and read what the gauge says.

 

[RalphVa]

I checked pressure drop through a 3/4" line for a couple gpm, which is about all you need for a house, and it was pretty much negligible. So, other's recommendation of 1" sounds good to me.

I'd run poly pipe. You can get it in long rolls, even 500' at Lowes/Home Depot. Might be able to get longer rolls at a plumbing supply place, but it might be too heavy to deal with.

Ralph

 

[Valveman]

I have a water line that is 7200' long. I ran 500' rolls of 1.5" black PE plastic pipe and used locking dresser couplings to connect it. Expansion and contraction pulled a couple of those locking dresser couplings apart the first few years. This kind of pipe will expand or contract a bout 1" for every 100' per 10F degree temperature change. I should have buried it deeper than 2' because the soil temp changes from 50F to 80F depending on the time of year. That equates to 18' of expansion from winter to summer or 18' of contraction from summer to winter.

If I had it to do over again I would not run such a straight line. I would zig and zag a bit for expansion. What happens is the summer expands the pipe and then it rains and settles the dirt around the pipe. Then in the winter when it contracts, there is no space in the ditch, and it pulls apart at the connections.

I would think this expansion and contraction would have the same effect on the gasket pipe. I would worry that when it expands it would push dirt into the gaskets and cause a leak. I now know why the Alaska pipeline and all overhead power lines have a zig zag in them every so often.

If you don't have enough pressure at the house you could always add a storage tank and use a booster pump to pressure the house. That would also give you 1000 gallons, or whatever size the storage tank is, as reserve for when the city supply is disrupted.

 

[Egon]

If thermal expansion will be a problem there are expansion joints for that purpose.

 

[the old grind]

I would expect 1"-1 1/2" poly to be best ... with a caveat that the house should have a tank and booster or shallow well pump plumbed as though coming from a well to maintain uniform pressure at all taps.

Going to 'work' tonight at the plumbing shop/fur shed. I'll ask the 'boss' (Master plumber, 16 yrs exp) if he's ever seen something like this. (diameter/distance)

(If I don't comment further by morning, he hasn't. :laughing

btw, my experience with 'expansion' is from a dig to replace hydrants between corrals. My 'guide' (with story pole) wandered away (40+ stalls to clean) and I wasn't able to maintain a consistent trench depth by eyeball from the seat. (~4')

Customer did the backfill w/new lines sagging in the trench and little tamping before or after. I was back in two months to dig up one hydrant whose connection had pulled apart after the fill had settled.

I strongly second a sand bed, compacting that (rent the machine) before laying, and as much zig & zag as trench width will allow. tog

 

[Sprinklerman]

There are friction loss and pressure loss tables in a lot of irrigation manuals . One thing for sure is I would lay 2 pipes on each side of the ditch , one as a spare . I would run a 3 rd pipe as a conduit . The thin wall pvc from an irrigation supply house would work , its used on golf courses all the time on longer runs . If the soil is rocky definatly backfill with sand . If you have to make turns use thrust blocks or 2 45 degree fittings . Check the prices on schedule 40 at the irrigation supply house , its not that much different when your buying a lot. You will need to know the pressure and flow at the supply to do your calculations .

I am an irrigation contractor , based on past experience inch and a half pipe should do you fine .

 

[Deere Dude]

I've searched all over and can't find an answer. My house will be 2000 feet from the rural water supply. Standard house...wife, two kids, no pool. What size pipe do I need to run? Unfortunately, there is no shallow water for a well and any water is 3000 feet down.

Can you clarify a couple things for me? 2000 feet to what size pipe and fittings? A city constant source or a private deep well? What is the pressure and volume at the source where you would tap in to? 3000' is a deep one.

 

[joeu235]

Thank you everyone for the great feedback. Hopefully someday I can help you out on a subject I am knowledgeable of.

Last time the soil froze here was probably during the last ice age.

Another question. I have a skid steer. Do you think it would be better to rent a trenching attachment or rent a dedicated trenching machine for this length? Soil is blackland clay with no rock insight.