Help with water supply line

[Streetcar]

At my old house I had 900 foot run of 1 1/2" pic. No pressure problems.
With the need to rent both ,I would go with the trencher. It was built for the job verses something that will work

 

[dadster4]

First step would be to find out what the pressure is at the street...without this info any calculations are a waste of time. You may not need any booster pumps, tanks, etc. at all. In fact, you may need a pressure reducing valve at the house.

 

[GPintheMitten]

Find a pipe supplier that can do calculations for you. And contact your provider to get specs for your source.

Last year I installed about 1800 feet of buried water lines for 9 hydrants for horses. This is in Michigan, 4 ft deep. I rented a sit on driving trencher that probably weighed about 8000 pounds. We installed 1 1/2 p.e. pipe. The owner of the.pipe supplier did the calculations and provided the fittings and pipe. Very expensive.

Get the professional advice for your situation. Do it right and do it once. It's too expensive to do it wrong.

 

[STx]

I'd calculate based on 15GPM, you may not ever need it but that's the largest likely household demand.

2" Sch 40 PVC at that distance will lose about 6.3PSI.
2.5" Sch 40 PVC will lose only 2.7PSI.

I'd go with the 2.5" pipe, price won't be that much more, unless you have 100PSI or something at the meter, in which case you could go with 1.25" Sch40 PVC and lose the 45PSI to get you down to a more useful 55PSI at the house and you'll still probably need a pressure regulator.

 

[D2Cat]

Why not go the your rural water office and talk to the manager. They know their system and what it will provide to your location for volume and pressure. Ask him how he would do it if it was his property.

 

[Billrog]

A curb stop from a water district would be very unusual if it were more than 3/4". Don't cheap out on the pipe 1" or 1 1/4" pipe will give you plenty of water. Don't lay it fiddle string tight let it wander from one side of the ditch to the other and if it's rocky soil bed it with sand.

 

[Qapla]

If you are going to bury the pipe less than 2' deep, I would think a chain trencher would be best .... ride on is easier to use that a walk along type.

If I were going deeper than that, I would consider a "mini track hoe" with either a 9" or 12" bucket. That would allow you do dig up to 7 feet deep.

At that depth, you may not get much, if any, pipe movement due to temperature changes.

I also install irrigation for a living. When we did Condos, many of then eventually end up with several thousand feet of mainline, we rarely needed larger than 2". Since we were digging the mainline with a hoe, we went deep, because we could. The little extra pipe you need for coming up is negligible.

Since Florida does not really have a freeze issue, we did not have to worry about that. If it was a concern, I would probably use a "slip fix" where the pipe leaves the ground vertically, this would allow movement without leaking.

 

[GPintheMitten]

A track hoe will take a long time to open up a 2000 foot trench compared to a large trencher.

 

[Egon]

For pipe rolls a plow might be what is required.

 

[joeu235]

For pipe rolls a plow might be what is required.

My dad has a roll over 3 bottom plow set up for running pipe but it doesn't go too deep.

 

[LD1]

Why not go the your rural water office and talk to the manager. They know their system and what it will provide to your location for volume and pressure. Ask him how he would do it if it was his property.

I agree with this and others that said the same thing. Too many people suggesting talking to contractors, etc.

Talk to whoever provides the water supply. (assuming that is what you are using and not a remote well, as I didnt see where you clarified)

Some of the things you need addressed

WHERE is the meter going to be? Ideally, you would want the water company to run a main line extension back near your house, then install the meter there. That does two things, everything up to the meter....if anything should go wrong.....is their responsibility. AND, you can use a much smaller meter. Sure, you may have to pay some for them to extend the main line, but it will be worth it.

Here are what my water-company charges for tap fees
5/8"-$5000
3/4"-$8300
1" - $12,800
1-1/2" - $23,800
2" - $38,100

Now that is JUST the cost to hook up.

Also need to be concerned with minimum monthly fees. Again, my water company
5/8" -$11
3/4" - $14
1" - $20
1-1/2" - $76
2" - $190

Well, I use about 5000-6000 gallons a month. My bill is ~$25-30 a month. If I had a 2" meter......who cares....$190 minimum thank you.

So this isnt something that you just want to fly by the seat of your pants and up size just because. I am sure your water company will have a similar price structure. Before you make any decisions, or get your mind made up about what size you need, your first step needs to be to contact the water company.

In the example above I gave about possibly having them run a 2" main extension back near your house, then reduce it down to a 5/8 or 3/4 meter. That is just what is done at my neighbors. It is a long private lane. (which used to only have one house and a free flowing spring). A second house was built and they ditched the spring for (what we call "city water"). First house is 1600' from main, second house is 2200' back. The water company ran a 2" main back and THEN the meters.

 

[EddieWalker]

The best advice you have been given is to go talk to the guy in charge at the Water Department. This is where my advice comes from. I talk to them all the time. I've working on jobs for three different rural Water Companies, and a couple dozen cities. It doesn't take long to figure out what they want and why they want you to use certain products. Repairs and leaks cost them a lot of money. More money to fix it then to spend more upfront on the best materials first.

Sounds like your soil is that very expansive clay that causes so many problems with foundations. Since you don't have a freeze, identifying and understanding how much movement you have is going to be the most important thing before committing to a type of pipe. I personally HATE poly pipe. I know there are different qualities out there, and you get better when you pay more for it. As already mentioned, the fittings are where you have the problems. You also have to slide a fitting inside each end to connect them, which creates a bottle neck and reducing the amount flow through the pipe. If you are sizing the pipe to minimize friction, that inside diameter of those connections is more important then the size of the poly pipe. I priced PEX to run a thousand feet and will not use it because gasketed is better and cheaper. Just more work to get it installed, but over the long term, that's an acceptable trade off.

For a run that long, a ride along trencher is going to be the best choice. Especially one with a blade on the front for filling the trench back up. Digging is easier the back filling.

Two feet deep is going to be plenty. I would be nervous going any less, and hating life if I had to make a repair on a pipe any deeper.

 

[joeu235]

I asked the water company a couple days ago. Their feedback was "don't use lead pipe, otherwise it's up to you" Pretty helpful of them.

Water meter is already installed from the previous owner which I turned off when I purchased the property 3 years ago. I had planned on using a water well. The driller told me ahead of time that it was a 50/50 shot whether he was going to hit water. He said there was a gravel bed that ended somewhere around my property. He drilled the test hole on Tuesday and no luck.

I had to pay for the monthly minimum for the past 3 years to get the meter turned back on.

Dry well + backdated water fees + 2000 feet of pipe...good thing I have a good job

 

[flusher]

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.

I dug the trenches for electric, water and gas about 11 years ago when I bought 10 acres for my new home. Total trench length was 1100 ft, some 24" deep, some 30" deep. No freezing problem in the North Sacramento Valley (Red Bluff area).

I rented a walk behind Ditch Witch from Home Depot. Took me about 11 hours to finish the job one Monday, including about 20 minutes to fix the pull cord on the 12 hp Honda engine. That was one long day.

Biggest problem I had was getting the trencher aligned correctly at the start of the trench run. Those walk behinds don't have any type of steering so you have to muscle it into place at the starting point.

Good luck

 

[mapper]

No matter what size of pipe you use, you may have a problem with "water hammer" if your house is not plumbed correctly. Check to make sure that all of your faucets and taps have risers on them, a 2000' run of pipe represents a lot of weight in water that once it gets moving it is hard to stop quickly. When our house was built I questioned the fact that the plumber was not installing risers, and was assured that since the house was on a well with a pressure tank they were not needed. Stupid me I believed this, they were the experts, right? Problem was the pressure tank is 600' or so from the house. Pipes banged every time a tap was closed, I ended up installing a forty gallon pressure tank in the garage to provide a cushion.
Point is, you may need to install a pressure tank at the far end of your 2000' just to moderate the momentary overpressure your system will generate with that length of pipe every time the water is turned off.

 

[Sprinklerman]

For pipe rolls a plow might be what is required.

He means a vibratory plow , some larger ones can lay the larger pipe in without trenching about 2 feet . It would take less than a day to do

 

[Deere Dude]

I asked the water company a couple days ago. Their feedback was "don't use lead pipe, otherwise it's up to you" Pretty helpful of them.

Water meter is already installed from the previous owner which I turned off when I purchased the property 3 years ago. I had planned on using a water well. The driller told me ahead of time that it was a 50/50 shot whether he was going to hit water. He said there was a gravel bed that ended somewhere around my property. He drilled the test hole on Tuesday and no luck.

I had to pay for the monthly minimum for the past 3 years to get the meter turned back on.

Dry well + backdated water fees + 2000 feet of pipe...good thing I have a good job

I feel your pain. What is the water pressure at the meter and what size is it. Once you know that, pipe sizes can be figured.

 

[pathunt]

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.

We had 2200 feet of 2" pvc water line installed when we built. The contractor ran into marble, and limestone about a foot down. We did bring the water line in under a small creek (that can go dry in summer) and put it inside a 4" metal pipe. Short - we have excellent water pressure and added a 2" fire hydrant at the house to knock the insurance rates down. The local fire dept. dues ar $10.00 a year.

Best wishes to ya -

Starkiller Hollow Oklahoma

 

[D2Cat]

You say, "I asked the water company a couple days ago. Their feedback was "don't use lead pipe, otherwise it's up to you" Pretty helpful of them."

If you have a rural water dist. you most likely have a water board, a manager (who is out in the field daily solving issues) and a secretary. If the manager gives you that kind of answer I would go to the next water board meeting and get some answers. The answer you received sounds like something from someone less then the manager.

You need facts, not hope so's!

 

[LD1]

You need to ask specific questions.

How much do different meter sizes cost?
What are the minimum charges for said meter size?
Where is the meter to be located? Near the road? Or near the house?