Water Line Run Question

Kerwin

Member
I am in the planning stages of running water lines to outbuildings. Starting with a clean slate. Pump pressure tank is in house basement, so all supply lines would originate there. Planning on having running water to three different spots. Longest run would be about 210 feet from house.

What are the pros and cons of running individual lines (3/4 inch black poly) to each of the three water sites, rather than one main line with branches? Lines would be in the same trench as much as possible, but would branch out as needed. All three could probably run together for about 80 feet before the first branch, then two could be together for another 100 before they would split apart.

My initial thought is that by using individual lines I could avoid underground connections and be able to shutoff and drain the individual lines as needed. Also, a leak in one line would not bring down the whole system. The runs aren"t that long so the overall cost of the black poly is not too bad with running them separate.
 
For optimum pressure and gpm"s, I would run a 1.25"-1.50" main line with branches off from that. A lot will depend on your pump capacity, how many lines would be running at the same time, and what you want for pressure and gpm"s at the working end. There are formula"s to calculate these values if you want to do a Google search.
 
Go with intivituall runs like you say you can shut one off and not effect the rest. if you have rocks I put it in small drainage tile the extra money is worth the pain if you back fill a rock on it. Also use brass connecters I found out the hard hay after a few years I had a couple either pull out or break also double strap them with stainless steel hose connecter.When we were digging them up to fix my contactor was jacking me up on these issues.
 
You hit the advantages on the head, the disadvantages, more friction, less flow, more KW needed to run the pump at the higher head pressure.
 
Kerwin,
Why would you want to drain lines? My frost line is 24 inches. My water lines are installed 36+ inches below grade. I never drain my lines.

Without knowing what the lay out of your plans are, it's hard to say what will work best for you.

Going out on a limb and say your pump is in the well, tank is in basement and the line from the pump is 1 inch. I have the same set up. I installed a hydrant 150 ft from tank with 3/4 inch plastic. No problems, plenty of water. I have a hydrant at the well head too. Lots of water there too. I have a hose bib at house. I can run all 3 and have plenty of water. Just how good is your well? If your well can't put out lots of water, why use large pipe?

Would it save you trenching and pipe if you teed in at the well head? You don't have to go to the basement to run lines.

Do you plan to have all three hydrants going at the same time? If you do, can your pump handle all 3 at once? If it can't then what is the advantage of 3 different lines? Will you have to dig up more of your yard to run 3 lines? Will you save trenching running a main and having 3 branches?

I wouldn't use a pipe bigger than the pipe from your well to the house.

There is a lot you are not telling us. Guess there is no real simple answer.

George
 
3/4 i feel is plenty and just t off..
I got a line buried for over a mile to a cattle tank thats a 1/2 inch...
I shure theres others that will say dif so do what u feel good about 8)
 
All of my under ground lines here at home are one inch. I used two inch at the factory underground the 150 feet from the well to the tank and then one inch inside just below the the rafters. I ran two inch from the system pump to the machines and one and one half to the coolers and manifolds. A lot of friction from water running thru pipe. All depends on the volume you expect at the use end. Myself I hate standing with my leggs crossed in the cold waitiing for a pail or tank to fill.
 
Go big.

210 feet is much too far for 3/4. One inch is a minimum, and I don't think two inch is out of line. By running a big, single line, you'll get full pressure to all your outbuildings, all the time. You'll get the same pressure drop from 200 feet of two inch pipe as you would get from 15 feet of 3/4. And I would use one inch for all the branch lines.

Bury your lines deep, and use frost-proof yard hydrants inside the outbuildings. 3/4 inch hydrants will be just fine, since there will be much more pressure drop in the one inch branch lines than in the hydrants.
 
"I wouldn't use a pipe bigger than the pipe from your well to the house."

George, let me give you a quick course in fluids. Pressure drop in a pipe is proportional to its length, and inversely proportional to its cross sectional area. What's that mean? In your case you say you have 150 feet of 3/4 inch pipe to your hydrant. And you have 10 feet of 1 inch line from your pump to your house. 3/4 pipe has .56 times the cross sectional area of one inch (.75 squared is .56). So that means you have 27 times the pressure drop from your house to your hydrant as you have from the pump to your house. (distance ratio is 15, divided by the area ratio of .56).

Now if you have a marginal pump, you won't notice that difference because the pump can't flow enough water to generate much pressure drop. But if you own a Miracle Wonder Pump like you say you do, you're cheating yourself by undersizing the plumbing.
 
Back in "96 (long before I had access to all the information available on this site) I ran a water line to a frost-proof hydrant at my pole building 220 feet from my water pump at the house.
I used 3/4" black poly and I have sufficient voulme and pressure for my needs.
Had I had access to this site back then, would I have used 1"? Probably, as the cost difference is negligible. I personally like the idea of separate lines!
BTW, my line is buried 5" to 6" deep and I do not concern myself with either draining or freezing.
 
I work in the water industry and you have the right idea. Run a seperate line to each hydrant and run 1" 200PSI. Anything less than 200PSI is thin wall pipe and it will leak. I see it once a week! Also stay away from barb fittings underground. USe a good compression fitting.
 
Mark,
There isn't enough pressue difference at 150 ft to notice. I can run a total of 5 sprinklers, 2 from hydrant, 2 from well head and one off the house all at the same time. If there was a pressue difference don't you think the sprinklers would show it? They don't. Still have 35 psi at the house. Each sprinkler covers 3000 square feet. At the 150 ft hydrant I have two 3/4 inch 75 ft hoses going to each sprinkler. How do you explain that?

BTW, well was installed a few month's ago.

George
 
George, you have 35 psi at your house, but I guarantee you don't have 35 psi out at your sprinkers. Let me ask you this: Why aren't you running 5/8" hoses to your sprinklers? The combined cross-sectional area of two 5/8" houses is greater than that of the 3/4" pipe feeding them; by your logic there's no need to use 3/4" inch hose. We both know you went with 3/4" hose to minimize pressure drop. If it's good enough for you, fine, but for a small incremental cost when you buried your water line you could have had much better pressure by using one inch line instead of 3/4.
 
I used this for a 3/4 water line to the garden about 17 years ago. I can drain it from in the basement. I would have to look to see who made it. It will withstand 180psi. They also had fittings for the water line. Mine came in a 100 foot coil. You may be able to get longer lengths. Hal
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lots of cutoff at each tee so if a line breaks, you can leave the rest up till you get it repaired...
 
Kerwin,
Just had a thought, better price materials and find out if you can even buy 200+ ft of pipe. I think when I did my job, I could only get 100 ft sections. Perhaps a plumbing supplier has longer. So you may have to splice.

I like to use 3/4 commercial hose because they will last a life time. If you watch Menards, they sell 75 ft hose for around $35. Yet yourself 3 sections, 225 ft, and see if 3/4 is what you want. Simple solution. If you are just wanting to run sprinklers you may find it's just fine.
George
 
Where can someone easily get the 200 psi pipe? The highest psi that the local farm supply store has is 160 psi black poly (HDPE, NSF grade). Would this be good enough or still be thin wall in your opinion?
 
yeah its thin wall. I promise you it will leak over a few years time span. Go to a good plumbing supply store, they will have it. Last month 3/4 was $0.35 a foot and 1" was $0.55 a foot
 
Local farm supply has 300 foot lengths of 1 inch 160 psi black poly. It's pricier than the 100 psi, but may be better insurance in the long run.

Water supply to outbuildings would be one hydrant and two Ritchie cattle waterers. Hydrant would get primary usage during summer months to fill stock tank for approx. 20 head of beef, waterers in the barnyards would be used in winter.
 
Kerwin,
Decided to measure the flow rate. I have 150+ ft of 3/4 black plastic pipe from my basement to hydrant at pole barn. I have 75 ft of 3/4 hose connected to hydrant, 225 + ft of 3/4 inch line. Turned water on for a minute before I started measuring flow rate, that way pressure would be less and pump would be running. If your cows can drink more than 10 gallons per minute, you may need to go with the larger pipe.

My well is new. It has a 1/2 hp gould submersible. There is about 50 ft of 1 inch pipe from well to house and my water table is 30 ft below grade. My well guy says pump should deliver 12 gallons per minute. Never measured the flow rate at well head. It is for sure more than 10 gallons per minute.

Hope this helps you decide what you are going to do. I can't see putting a pant load of money in larger pipe, especially is you have a small pump, your flow rate is small and your cows can wait for a drink.

George
 
Kerwin here in Iowa we put our water lines 6' deep and my guys will only install the blue plastic line. They use 1" from the rural water pit to the house, out buildings, and hydrants. Can run several hydrants at once and have good water pressure. Use stainless steel clamps and put 2 on at each connection. CHECK FOR LEAKS.
 
mosinee dave:

Apologies in advance for the slightly OT, but are you suggesting putting 'loose' sections of drain tile over the pipe as physical protection? Or??

We are about to install ~150' of 2" Sched. 80 PVC in the plant area of our community water system. We are looking for every advantage in prolonging both the service interval and the service life!
 
My way of looking at this... if you bury three lines in one trench you have three lines and three times as many connections that could possibly leak.
I'd go with one larger diameter pipe throughout and don't step it down until it gets above grade in the building. You don't know what your requirements are going to be down the road and one large line will flow more water than 3 small ones. I'd go with 1-1/4" at minimum. 1-1/2" if the price is not too outrageous. We've got stuff around here buried that ranges from 1/2" to 1-1/4".... and I'm sorry to say I wish it was all 1-1/4".
larger pipe is also thicker and will withstand rock better. Use stainless connectors and clamps. Galvanized will rust... The larger line will have FAR less friction loss than 3 smaller lines.

Rod
 
What is PSI rating on the blue plastic that you use? Seems like I've seen it with both 160 and 200 psi ratings, but could be mistaken.
 
Don't use big-box-store 3/4 poly line. Learn from my own experience.

I have a second farm 75 miles away. It is served by a community water system with a main shut off out in the field. Last winter, a few weeks after my tenant moved out, I got a call from the water company saying they'd shut off the water to the property because I had a bad leak.

I finally got around to fixing it a couple weeks ago. After making the drive up there I manage to find the leak, but it was too late in the day to repair it.

I shut the water back off, and returned a week later. Dug a deep enough hole around the leak to find it was 1/4 inch hole in a plastic coupling in a 3/4 inch black poly line running off towards a distant (unused) stock tank. It looked like results of a previous repair.

Went to the local hardware store and bought a shutoff valve and some galvanized couplers. When attempting to reconnect the line I found the old plastic had gotten stiff and developed a "set" and it was difficult to get the outbound coupling to not leak. But I was able to get the valve to cut the water off, and I was satisfied with that. I turned the water back on to the house.

Worked on another project for a while, came back to the leak to collect my tools, and found a large puddle in the field, 10 feet away from my repair. It was another leak, not related to my fix.

Too late in the day to deal with it, and too hard to find the exact source with a shovel.
I sent my buddy up there with his mini excavator to scrape the grass away and try to narrow down the source of the leak.

Eventually, he found the leak was in a different 3/4 black poly line running to another stock tank. He plugged the line by folding it over and clamping it (in his experience this works better than anything else for closing off such lines).

After 3 trips and a couple hundred dollars I finally have the leaks fixed and the water back on to the house. I've abandoned the lines to the stock tanks -- when I sell the place a future owner can fix them if he wants to.

Now this is in silty soil without any rocks. The lines were about two feet down in an area where the ground doesn't freeze. I don't know what caused the leaks -- maybe mechanical damage from tractors on waterlogged soil? But I will never use such plastic line in any future project.

I did use 1.5 inch heavy wall poly pipe for the main line from my well to my house, and that's held up fine for 10 years. But I'm not sure I'd do it again.

I've used Wirsbo Pex for hydrants, and that holds up and gives a flexible connection that can move as the hydrant is operated.

One thing I've also learned from all this is to always add shut off valves to branch lines, especially to such non-essential things as hydrants and stock tanks. That way your whole system isn't down because of a leak to something you don't need anyway.
 
In n MN I have only used 100 psi poly from Menards, but we have to put it down 6-7 feet or blow it out, and I have never had a problem. My Father put black poly in the ground 65 years ago and to my knowledge it is still working fine, just can't put any big rocks on top of it! The last one we did went under a driveway so I put sand over it and then blue foam insulation. When you keep the snow plowed and drive on it 7 ft. might not be deep enough!
 
In n MN I have only used 100 psi poly from Menards, but we have to put it down 6-7 feet or blow it out, and I have never had a problem. My Father put black poly in the ground 65 years ago and to my knowledge it is still working fine, just can't put any big rocks on top of it! The last one we did went under a driveway so I put sand over it and then blue foam insulation. When you keep the snow plowed and drive on it 7 ft. might not be deep enough!
 
The 3/4 blue piping I used to the garden was made by Orangeburg and it is rated at 180psi. They may have larger size piping. It was installed around 1994. Your local plumbing warehouse should have the piping and would know the max pressure it will withstand. Should have the fittings for connecting it too. I think one big diameter pipe would be better without any connections underground. Hal
 

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