How far can you run water with a hose?

[AlbertC]

I recently planted some trees that are about 500 ft from water faucet. The distance from faucet to trees is relatively flat. I have very good pressure at the faucet. Would I be able to install a drip system to water these 10 trees at this distance from the faucet?

Thanks

 

[davesl708]

The distance is not the issue. Elevation would be your limiting factor. If you are not going up hill to much you should not have a problem.

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Yes you can run a hose that far and it will operate a drip system fine, but why? I would think that 500' of 3/4" or 1" would be better and probably not cost as much as 500 feet of hose.

Good luck. :thumbsup:

 

[Streetcar]

I have run 450' of 3/4" hose for watering trees. Pressure dropped by half but it was still easier than hauling water

 

[GPintheMitten]

I also think it would be good to cost out plastic pipe. You could lay it out on top of the grade, put hose connections on each end. Then before winter drain it or use compressed air to empty it.

 

[buickanddeere]

Several miles if you want. However depending on the amount of friction form the diameter and material the hose and fittings are made of will cause flow reduction due to pressure drop.

 

[ustmd]

I recently planted some trees that are about 500 ft from water faucet. The distance from faucet to trees is relatively flat. I have very good pressure at the faucet. Would I be able to install a drip system to water these 10 trees at this distance from the faucet?

Thanks

I use drip extensively in my "yard", with some runs close to this-no problem. We also run water to a pasture >800 ft away using several hoses. You see the pressure drop, but it is not an issue for watering or filling a tank.

 

[Cord]

A hose will supply a moderate drip system at those distances. Black plastic pipe is probably a better choice for cost reasons. When you turn the water on, it will take quite some time to build pressure up, but friction loss is only a function of distance, diameter and flow. So long as you keep your flow to a minimum, then you can get by with a small diameter pipe.

 

[polkwrangler]

i ran 1/2 inch pvc roughly 1000 feet no problem at all and cheaper than water hoses

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Calculating pump flows is complicated because there are a lot of factors. Factors are:
* the length of the run
* the elevation change of the run
* the type of pipe
* the diameter of the pipe
* the capacity of the pump supplying the water
* the requirements at the destination for gallons per minute and PSI.

Let me run through some calculations to give you a flavor. Just googling, I found that 100' of drip irrigation tape requires 0.45 gpm at 8 PSI. Longer tapes will require more GPM at the same PSI.

Let's say you're using 500 feet of 1/2" poly pipe. Using the pressure drop calculator here I get a drop of 1.4 PSI at 0.45 GPM. If you need 8 PSI at the end and have a drop of 1.4 PSI you need 9.4 PSI at the source. Assume also that the pipe rises 10 feet over its run. That 10 feet is about 5 PS, so you'd need 14.4 PSI at the source. At the source you'd need a pump capable of 0.45 GPM at 14.4 PSI, which isn't much of a pump, it would probably work.

Let's say instead that you've got ten strips instead of one. So you need 4.5 GPM instead of 0.45. With the same half inch pipe, going back to the calculator, your pressure drop would be 100.3 PSI. To get 8 PSI at the end, plus five PSI of elevation gain, your source pressure would have to be 113.3. You'd need a pump that could provide 113 PSI at 4.5 GPM. That's a hefty pump, bigger than in most residences. Plus 113 PSI puts you out of the range of the cheap pipe I would recommend for this use.

Let's say you use one inch pipe instead of half inch pipe. Going back to the calculator, 4.5 GPM through 500 feet of inch pipe has a pressure drop of 3.4 PSI. So to get 8 PSI at the end you would need 16.4 PSI at the source (including 5 PSI for elevation). The flow of 4.5 GPM at 16.4 PSI would be typical of a residential well pump.

So it all depends on what you've got at the other end and that drives what diameter pipe you need.

I would use black poly pipe. You can get 300' rolls at Home Depot special order. I bought some rolls this spring and for one-inch pipe it was about 25 cents a foot, 3/4 is about 20 cents.