Water line question

[PILOON]

In my area pf Quebec I know of 3 municipalities that approve the use of blue poly B for municipal hookups.
Now all 3 have well informed engineers on staff and they do research.
Generally no municipality won't OK something if they can't CYA.
It is all about liabilities, don't U know.
Now with copper prices being in orbit there is more and more poly B being used.
Fortunately I have a supplies that can provide Blue Poly B in spools up to 300 ft.

My 2 cents, FYI.

 

[GGray]

Good grief indeed, workinonit! At the risk of adding further to the confusion, I would just like to add some observations (several of these have already been posted by others) from my own experiences working on rural plumbing for over 50 years:
- Avoid buried fittings if at all possible
- Poly pipe rated for 160 or 200 psi is hard to beat. The only problems I have seen with poly is where 100 psi rated was used, or where the installer used a torch to make it easier to insert fittings.
- Protect with at least 6 inches of sand, under and over the pipe
- I'm a big fan of sleeving where practical (I don't understand the comment that sleeves can sometimes cause problems, and would be interested in learning how)
- I perform hydraulic calculations for fire sprinkler systems and can flat out state, bigger pipe WILL NOT negatively affect volume or pressure.

 

[Steelauzzy]

Pex or municipex is the way to go. Take car when backfilling to sort your material. A load of sand could also help majorly. PVC is rigid and more inclined to cracking if hit by a rock. Also you have to take great care to clean prime and seat each joint, the potential failures are massive.

the best peice of advise you will ever get is this. Compare the cost of having to dig up even one leak to repair. I’m my mind an extra 250$ isn’t even worth mentioning. Total no brainer.

 

[plowhog]

I would run stainless steel tubing

Stainless is only recommended for homeowners awash in excess cash.

The OP can satisfy everyone-- doing the job in segments-- part copper, poly, pvc, cpvc, and pex. And stainless where it comes up out of the ground-- looks nice plus no UV problems!

Totally overlooked is the "old school" trenching idea. Instead, I'd suggest modern-day underground directional pipe bore .... after all, why skimp on your project?

 

[4570Man]

Believing you can increase PSI by reducing pipe size is commonly misunderstood.

So why do you say increasing pipe size will reduce pressure?

That’s some more terrible advice which this thread is chocked full of. Most people don’t seem to understand volume and pressure. You could run 4” pipe if you wanted to. It’s obviously not going to flow very much because you’re only feeding it with a 3/4 pump or meter but at the other side you’ll still have very close to the same pressure and volume you started with. And pressure really doesn’t mean much taken as a static reading. You could run 1/4 inch line a mile and it wouldn’t loose any pressure without flow.

 

[kalkid]

I have a cabin about 3500 feet from the road where there is a meter pit and city water supply. Original homeowner installed 20 foot lengths of 1 inch sch 40 pvc. Pressure is fine. I’ve had to dig it up and repair it 3 times in the 5 years I’ve owned it. Even more fun when they bury electrical lines with the water! All breaks at fittings. Maybe it was poor install but if it were me I’d be running pex or some sort of poly with no fittings. Our soil is silty loam.

The inside of the cabin is all cvpc. Granted it’s 30 years old but that stuff is so brittle now as someone mentioned it cracks and is an accident waiting to happen. I’ve had to fix 10 or so leaks. Plan to rip it all out but it’s rather involved and the log cabin design presents some other challenges.

 

[4570Man]

I have a cabin about 3500 feet from the road where there is a meter pit and city water supply. Original homeowner installed 20 foot lengths of 1 inch sch 40 pvc. Pressure is fine. I’ve had to dig it up and repair it 3 times in the 5 years I’ve owned it. Even more fun when they bury electrical lines with the water! All breaks at fittings. Maybe it was poor install but if it were me I’d be running pex or some sort of poly with no fittings. Our soil is silty loam.

The inside of the cabin is all cvpc. Granted it’s 30 years old but that stuff is so brittle now as someone mentioned it cracks and is an accident waiting to happen. I’ve had to fix 10 or so leaks. Plan to rip it all out but it’s rather involved and the log cabin design presents some other challenges.

Those are all couplers vs belled ends. Have you had any belled ends leaking?

 

[rScotty]

Believing you can increase PSI by reducing pipe size is commonly misunderstood.

So why do you say increasing pipe size will reduce pressure?

If the inside is similar in smoothness, then increasing pipe size reduces pressure loss. With a larger pipe you retain more of the psi at the far end. It's as simple as that. It's a matter of math & science - not a matter of debate.
It has to do with the thickness and shape of fluid in the friction layer that touches the inside of the pipe compared with the total volume and velocity of fluid carried.

But why even go there? Just accept that with larger pipe and fewer couplings less psi is lost to fluid friction. So you get more pressure available at the far end. The relationship is not linear, but again the idea to take home is simple: all we need to remember that for pipes, a little bit larger and a few less couplings turns out to be a whole lot better.
rScotty

 

[rScotty]

All anyone here in n idaho use is the thick black poly rolls. Never heard of any failures. Our water is installed 5 feet down. Its not the Home Depot crap, I believe it’s rated 200 psi. A roll can kick your butt installing, as it can be 500 feet long and nearly impossible to unroll. Ive had it re-roll itself while I was in the trench...thought this is it.

Yep, that's the good stuff. It's important to note that HEAVY WALL Commercial well duty black poly has no comparison at all to the Home Depot black poly. Just like schedule 40 PVC from the box store doesn't compare to the commercial 20 foot belled lenghts of 80 PSI & higher UV resistant grey PVC.

I've seen some good work done with 20 foot bell end sections of sched. 80 large diameter PVC. Use sweep bends, & proper glue. Avoid short radius bends. Any pipe benefits from being sleeved.

As others say, I've seen CPVC becoming brittle too. Some of my own installations, too. Not a good product. I used it and now wish I hadn't.
For hot water inside (and gas outside) I've now gone back to copper and am using soldered and flared connections. Damn the expense; it's a good product.

For a long well line or water line you won't have any problem with that heavy high PSI thick wall black poly stuff lasting a long time. Of course you will bed it in sand. That heavy poly is fairly expensive, but is what most well installers use. However, unrolling a 500 foot roll of 1.5" 200 psi black poly so that it doesn't have an kinks & relaxes in the sun so that it can be installed as a single straight run is a real hassle, but worth the effort.
For unrolling heavy poly rolls, it helps to tie one end to a tree and have a few friends and a small tractor to help you unroll it. Give it a day in the hot sun and it will relax.

So for long runs that heavy wall my favorite today is
1 1/4 or 1 1/2inch diam heavy wall black poly. I have used a heat gun and long barbed fittings, but don't really like that because once assembled there is no constant compression. For Poly pipe I am considering changing over to compression fittings. Only thing stopping me is lack of experience with those fittings.

For constant compression of the tubing onto the fitting it is hard to beat PEX connectors with their O ring fittings compressed by the copper ring with the special PEX squeezer. That in itself is a good reason to keep PEX as an option. That and the fact that it unrolls nicely without a fight.
Have fun out there,
rScotty

 

[the old grind]

.. For Poly pipe I am considering changing over to compression fittings. Only thing stopping me is lack of experience with those fittings.

For constant compression of the tubing onto the fitting it is hard to beat PEX connectors with their O ring fittings compressed by the copper ring with the special PEX squeezer. That in itself is a good reason to keep PEX as an option. That and the fact that it unrolls nicely without a fight.

'Plumber' and decades of DIY reminded me that compression fittings are easy. Match the ferrule to the line mat'l. Poly ferrule with poly lines, brass/SS with metal lines. btw, poly ferrules are 'directional' but the fit-up isn't confusing at all.