Running water line 900'

[MPrewitt]

The wife started a flower bed up by the highway which is about 800' to 1000'from the house. We are on a water well system. We are both tired of taking water in buckets up to water the trees and plants that she planted.

I want to run a water line from the well up to the flower bed.
My question is can I run a 3/4" line that far without have a pressure drop and end up with no flow at the flower bed. Or do I have to start out with a larger line for a couple hundred feet then reduce it to a smaller size for another couple hundred feet then reducing to my final 3/4" size for the final couple hundred feet.

 

[Richard]

I don't know the answer but here's what I did.

My uncle has some blueberry bushes across the field. I'd guess 500 feet away and on about the same elevation as my house. The ground slopes away from the house and then back up to the berries.

He wanted to put a line in while I had a trencher out here so I dug the trench and we put in a 1" black poly pipe from the bottom of my yard up to the berries.

Last year during the drought, we used it for the first time. I take a water hose from my house (supplied inside the house by a 1/2" copper pipe) and connect the hose at the bottom of my hill to the black tubing. We attached a hose on the berrie end, with a drip line on it.

The pressue at the berries isn't as high as at the house but it DID work and saved the bushes last year.

I think since the bushes are on the same elevation as the house, the gravity pulling the water down my hill helps push the water up the hill to the bushes. Think of a "U" and water seeking its own level.

If it won't work for you, another thing we did... he has a 300 gallon tank on the back of a trailer (maybe 275?)

Anyways, I hooked trailer to the tractor and delivered several tank loads of water up there during the drought, prior to getting the hose system hooked up. Was pretty easy using the tank although you couldn't set it and forget it like the soaker hose.

 

[charlz]

The bigger the better and the less couplers the better. You really need to know pressure at the starting end, change in elevation etc. to calculate the friction loss.

What do you plan on doing at the far end? A hose? A couple of drip emitters?

 

[atpchas]

I don't know the answer but here's what I did.

My uncle has some blueberry bushes across the field. I'd guess 500 feet away and on about the same elevation as my house. The ground slopes away from the house and then back up to the berries.

He wanted to put a line in while I had a trencher out here so I dug the trench and we put in a 1" black poly pipe from the bottom of my yard up to the berries.
<snip>

Where did you buy the 1" black poly hose? I've been trying to find some for quite a while and have not been able to match the hose that was installed 40+ years ago.

We have a run that is about a half mile from the spring to the house. The spring is high enough above the house that there is excellent pressure and volume despite the length and couplings.

Charlie

 

[charlz]

Where did you buy the 1" black poly hose? I've been trying to find some for quite a while and have not been able to match the hose that was installed 40+ years ago.

Lowes and Home Depot both carry 1" black PE pipe, psi rating varies between the two chain stores. Usually only in 100' lengths though. 3/4" can come in 300' rolls.

 

[KTM300]

Would the 3/4" be suitable to supply a "mother-in-law" quarters about 140' from the main house at about the same elevation? Includes small kitchen and bathroom. Pressure is boosted to 60 psi at the main house.

KTM300

 

[EddieWalker]

The size of the pipe is not going to increase your presure. Only gravity and a an inline pump can do that.

At 900 ft, you will loose allot of pressure unless it's downhill. Then you can actually increase pressure significantly. The size of the pipe allows you to carry more volume, but that's only significant if you have multiple uses for the line and have enough pressure to supply it.

Do you know how much pressure that you have at the pumpe or where you will tap into the line for this run?

Even in a worse case scenerio, you will have some amount of water coming out of the line. Depending on how big the flower bed is, you could either use a hose to water the plants and be happy for not having to carry those buckets, or you can hook up a soaker type system to do the watering for you.

I have a similar situation for a flower bed that I'm going to put in sometime in the futre. I ran a one inch line with 65psi at the begining, 600 feet. I'm down to 30 pounds at my spicket. This is plenty for what I want it to do, so the loss wasn't a big deal. I also ran electricity and will install a sprinkler system with two sprinkler heads working at a time.

Eddie

 

[jinman]

The wife started a flower bed up by the highway which is about 800' to 1000'from the house. We are on a water well system. We are both tired of taking water in buckets up to water the trees and plants that she planted.

I want to run a water line from the well up to the flower bed.
My question is can I run a 3/4" line that far without have a pressure drop and end up with no flow at the flower bed. Or do I have to start out with a larger line for a couple hundred feet then reduce it to a smaller size for another couple hundred feet then reducing to my final 3/4" size for the final couple hundred feet.

You didn't say how big the flower bed is or how you plan to water it (hose, soaker hose, drip irrigation). I think a 3/4" line will be fine for a small flower bed or to feed almost any kind of drip irrigation. It might even be fine for single 50' section of soaker hose. If you plan much more, I'd go with a 1-1/2" black poly for the first 900' and then drop down to a more common 3/4" pvc for the distribution and multiple spigots. The advantage of the black poly is that it will have enough flow for you to tap into it anywhere if you ever decide to add something else somewhere along the route.

Everywhere you put a spigot, be sure to drive a section of angle iron into the ground and clamp the riser pipe inside the angle to give support. That will keep the PVC from breaking at the joint down in the ground if an attached hose gets tugged.

 

[CurlyDave]

Actually, there are two criteria for choosing the correct pipe size.

One is pressure drop, and the second is that you want to keep the water velocity under 7 feet per second, in order to prevent suspended particulates from causing erosion of the pipe.

Every time I have analyzed a pipe size, the second criteria always required a larger size than the first.

 

[adlertom]

My question is can I run a 3/4" line that far without have a pressure drop and end up with no flow at the flower bed. Or do I have to start out with a larger line for a couple hundred feet then reduce it to a smaller size for another couple hundred feet then reducing to my final 3/4" size for the final couple hundred feet.

The larger the pipe, the less the friction loss. You don't need to to step it down every couple hundred feet like you described, just run a big pipe all the way to the end, then reduce at the final coupling.

You could accomplish the same thing by running two smaller pipes in parallel, but that would probably be less cost effective than a single larger pipe.

A small increase in pipe diameter results in a large decrease in friction loss.

 

[WayneB]

I have a run of approximately 600 feet and the elevation is about 150 feet up hill. I ran the line using 1" poly and the pump is a 1 hp jet pump and the pressure at the pump is 50 PSI. Around here the poly is around 75 dollars for a 300 foot roll. I tried the run with 3/4" poly but it just didn't provide enough volume.

Depending upon your elevation, maybe 3/4" poly would work for your application?

 

[SCRich]

GREAT thread! I am looking to do the same thing but slightly different distances, 400ft to the road with a 20ft rise maybe and then about a 700ft run to the back feed plot with a 40-50ft gentle drop and a 50 or so steep rise back to just about equal elevation from the house/well.

I ran 1in PVC 20ft lengths from the house to the road before the driveway was done but never connected it. Eventually I plan to complete the run to the well head where I have a hose bib.

Hopefully it will all work but but I do think I will need a pump to push the water up the hill to the food plot. I hope the water run to the road will do just fine, it is no different than a large hose going down the driveway except I burried it and it's 1in PVC.

 

[johnsonmopar]

I ran 1/2 inch black polly line about the same distance to a stock tank. The pressure is still good with it. I bought one 500' bundle at walmart and the other at our farm ranch store. Matt

 

[tommu56]

I suggest looking for well pipe at a plumbing supply store I got a 400 ft roll of 1" they had 600 ft rolls too it

here is a link to a manufacturer with flow data.
http://www.cresline.com/pdf/cresline/flexiblepipe&ftgs/pe161cts.pdf

tommu

 

[Steve_Miller]

2.306 feet of elevation equals 1 psi for water.

Online Conversion - Pressure Conversion

Steve

 

[SCRich]

Great info continuing to come in even though it's a bit older of a thread, thanks! Sounds like Poly line so far is not only the way to go but also the least expensive way, wow is that rare! It sure is easyer to carry a 600ft roll in a pick up truck than hundreds of feet worth of 20ft sections of PVC.

Now my problem is coming to terms with parting with the money to rent or hire a trencher and possibly run electricity for a pump. As with most people in America now you either have no cash or you are one of the lucky few with cash but are very selective on what you spend money on. A month ago I was more lazy than cautious, now it's the other way around!

 

[kenmac]

when you don't have alot of pressure to play with . You can use a larger pipe for volume. If I were running 140 ft to supply a house . I would run atleast 1''

 

[hayden]

Did you ever tell us what the elevation change is between the house and garden? It's one of two factors that will impact your pressure at the garden.

As mentioned earlier for a change in elevation, you will see a drop (or gain) of about 1 PSI for every 2.3 feet of rise (drop). This is the net difference in elevation between the house and garden. It doesn't matter how much up and down there is in-between.

The second source of pressure loss (and it's only loss, never a gain) is friction as the water flows through the pipe. The loss is a function of the amount of water flow and pipe size and type. If you do a google search for Pipe Friction Loss you will find a number of calculators that will tell you how much pressure loss you will get over the 900' for different flow rates.

Add together the two sources of loss, and you'll get your number. I'd suggest running the numbers just to be sure. Anecdotal advice is great, but everyone's circumstances are different. All the work is cutting the trench and installing the pipe, and you really only want to do it once. The difference in cost between the pipe sizes is unlikely to be very large. Also, I'd suggest the 160 PSI poly pipe, not the 100 PSI stuff the home depot and other box stores sell. You'll see a notable difference in the wall thickness and durability of the pipe. The heavier stuff is also much less kink-prone, and kinks in the light stuff will often lead the leaks.

 

[tommu56]

MPrewitt

Even if you have to go to 2" to cut friction loss and eliminate a pump it would be cheaper in the long run pumps aren't cheap and electric is getting worse by the minuet.

tommu

 

[RonMar]

Well concidering it is a flower bed that you have been watering with buckets, and you are not planning on running a shower with it, you probably don't need much volume. You only get pressure loss from friction when there is flow. If your head isn't too great already, you could probably run it in 3/4" and be just fine. Most flow tables I have seen express the friction loss in the form of additional head. For instance, in my little black book-o-knowledge, 3/4" PVC at 2GPM flow has a head loss of just under 2' per 100' of pipe length. For a 2GPM flow at the end, that would be like pumping up an additional 18' of hill for your 900' run. 4GPM would add around 50' of head losses in 3/4" pipe.
Since friction is a factor of pipe cross section area, going to 1" pipe for the same 2GPM would only add about 1/4 the head, or 4.5' for a 900' run. 4GPM thru 900' of 1" pipe would add about 15' in additional head thru friction.

The smaller pipe would probably quite happilly run a soaker, drip system or small sprinkler head just fine, without overwatering/flooding the flowerbed. With this in mind, I would put in whichever size I could get and install with the least expense.

Good Luck.