Distance to well

[homesteader824]

We have a decent deep well on our property, close to the current cabin. Unfortunately, the cabin is in bad shape and beyond repair, and isn't really located in the best place as far as drainage goes. There is a better building site for a house about 250 feet away, at least. If we had to drill a new well that would put the cost over the top of what we could afford. Can anyone tell me what would be the maximum distance you could run pipe from a well to a house? I'm thinking if you went with a large enough diameter pipe, the friction loss would decrease enough for a longer run. The gauge on the tank shows about 65psi, and easily puts out 6 gpm or better. Any help would be appreciated.

[wogglebug]

I've used a garden water supply which was pumped with a windmill from a pond a mile away, in standard galvanised-iron pipes. You can't suck the water up more than about 25 feet, but once you get the pump behind the water you can push it virtually forever. The windmill did both - it sat about 15'-25' above the water (inlet hose tied to a float that followed the water level of the relatively clear water surface as the pond emptied or filled), sucked water up to itself, then pushed it uphill a mile to the garden supply.

These days, polypipe would be better, if you could protect it. Either bury it in a trench with markers to show where it runs, or run it along a fence. I've seen polypipe wired up as the top rail on a fence, and it's easy to find and fix any problems that way. Only real risk is fire. Alternatively, you could bury it along the fence-line and only need a shallow trench - say 6".

What you want to do is store the water in an overhead tank or cistern once it gets where you want it, then use the overhead pressure to deliver the water to the outlets. This also means you don't have your pump cycling on and off all the time. Wait till the tank gets half-empty, then refill it and pump goes off again, waiting for next time tank is half-empty. Also gives you sort of a safety margin (the other half of the tank) in case you get a problem with your electricity or your pump.

[Fire-Man]

My deep well is 500ft from the fartherest home/building it furnishes. 1" pvc to the first 3 homes(first 350ft) then 3/4" to the last 2 homes and buildings. No Problem for the first 31 years-----then the casing busted. The well was right beside the main road, with 5 homes and 1 1/2 months wait to get a new well drilled---I hooked to the public water(they came right out and hooked me up that day). Now 1 water meter tap using this same pipe---supplies all the water and no one has a problem---no one knows when anyone is washing clothes etc.

[wharton]

I have helped do maintenance on a campground where a modest sized well and pump push water to 80 campsites, using thousands of feet of 1" poly pipe. Never been an issue with supply.

[Bubbas Boys]

We are in the process of building and are wanting to tie on to my father-in-laws well that he had drilled 5 years ago. It is a deep well. I called the guys who put it in and had he come out. We are building about 300 ft away and he said it was no problem at all. Told us he has ran several homes on the same property up to 1000 ft from well. Seems to me you should be just fine. We are going to start running our line in the spring. Good luck.

[COWS]

A submersible pump would pump the water a greater distance. My pipe run is about 200 feet, no pumping problems.

COWS

[Darren]

I had a similar problem connecting to the county water system. They ran 3/4" under the county road to the other side of the creek about 1000 feet away with a 50' drop in elevation down to the meter. I ran 2" to minimize losses due to friction and the increase in elevation. When I connected, the pressure gauge showed 15 psi. When the water company removed the pressure regulator I had 60 psi. Since then I extended the system another 600' and still have 45 psi at that point running 1" uphill.

[fishhead]

My shallow well garden pump sucks water from the lake about 240' away. Then it pushes it back down to the garden about another 200'. I use 1 1/4" polypipe.

I haven't measured it but I'm sure it's about 10 gal/minute.

If you have pocket gophers I would not go less than 2" outside diameter pipe.

[am1too]

Originally Posted by fishhead

My shallow well garden pump sucks water from the lake about 240' away. Then it pushes it back down to the garden about another 200'. I use 1 1/4" polypipe.

I haven't measured it but I'm sure it's about 10 gal/minute.

If you have pocket gophers I would not go less than 2" outside diameter pipe.

Would you kindly tell us why 2". What do pocket gophers do?

[chronic66]

200 ft would be a piece of cake. I know people that had to go 2000 ft.

[fishhead]

Pocket gophers chew on electric line and waterline. They can't open their mouth wide enough to chew on 2" outside diameter pipe. I've used 1 1/2" schedule 40 pvc pipe on the farm without any trouble. The outside diameter is 1 3/4" and seems to be too big for them to start chewing.

When I first buried electric line on the farm I didn't put it in pipe and before I could even get it hooked up the gophers ruined 900' ($500) of electric line. I pulled it all (by hand) the next year and they chewed the insulation so often I don't think I got any reusable pieces longer than about 30'. I redid it all inside of 1 1/2" pvc and never had any gopher trouble.

[Old Vet]

I ran water from a well to a place 5,000 feet away through a 1-1/4 pipe. The pressure dropped to to 15 PSI from the 65 PSI at the well. We added a pressure tank at the end and got 50 psi but if you want to have more you can also have a in line pump to it and get all the pressure you want. Here is a sample of the in line pump http://bellgossett.com/pumps-circula...mps/series-90/

[unregistered353870]

I run water over a thousand feet in 1" pex. It was 3/4" copper when I got this place and that wasn't great so I replaced it...all these years later I'm still kicking myself for leaving that copper in the ground. 3/4" would probably be fine for you, but 1" isn't much more expensive and has about 80% more capacity (ignoring nominal pipe sizes) so it's a good idea to just use 1".

[gila_dog]

As others have said, I don't think you'll have a problem running your water 200 ft or so. I would use 1" or larger pipe just to cut down on friction loss. Steel pipe, even galvanized, will rust out. PVC is cheap and easy to work with, but it's pretty delicate. If it freezes it breaks. Black poly pipe is a lot tougher. PEX is really tough stuff, but kinda expensive.

You don't say where you are, but if it's cold country your biggest concern should be protecting it from freezing. You should be able to find out how deep to bury your water lines by asking around in your community. But any place the water line comes up out of the ground you will have to protect it from freezing and the possibility of fire and other damage. If you can bring it up inside your new cabin, rather than outside and then thru a wall, that will protect it a lot.

Another thing you may want to consider while doing all this is installing a freeze proof yard hydrant near your cabin as part of the job while you have the trench open. Just T off the main line going from the well to the cabin and hook the hydrant to that. Be sure and put lots of gravel in the hole below and around the hydrant so it can drain.

[highlands]

Maximum? Hmm... Couple of miles maybe. All depends on slope and how much money you're willing to spend for pipe. We don't have any wells, we have springs because we're on mountain ledge (can't dig) and the furthest spring is about 2,000'. We have a 2" pipe to that one. Others we have 1" pipes. Continuous pipe is better. You can get big reels of it special order - actually pretty cheap. But for just 250' you can buy a 300' section stock off the shelf. I would suggest putting in the largest diameter pipe you can. We didn't bury ours - it just flows to keep unfrozen. See:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/01/02/water-line-reel/

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/08/06/water-line-pull/

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/12/17/spring-improvement/

The 300' lines can be joined with unions and hose clamps (Stainless Steel) and are small enough to lay by hand. For the big reels a tractor makes it a lot easier.

[homesteader824]

Thanks for all the responses. Before asking, I didn't know if anybody had done this before. I finally did find a chart on friction loss and the 1-1/4" pipe sounds like the way to go. A 300 foot roll of poly pipe sounds a lot better than trying to connect a bunch of 10' sections. I'm in southern Missouri, so it will need to be buried to protect from freezing. One plus in running this new line would be that it goes by the garden, so I could install a yard hydrant there in addition to one by the new house.

[fishhead]

Plus you don't gain friction from all those couplers.

I learned the hard way not to try to get 1 1/2"" polypipe to unroll to quickly. It had too much memory and I ended up kinking it several times in short order.

Best to do it on on a sunny warm day to soften the pipe. I found it best to cut the binding and sort of shake the rolls so they can expand. Then let them rest for 10-25 minutes before making the coils larger. Keep repeating that a few times. If you can let it relax for a day or so.

Then as you unroll it in the trench keep it buried as close to the rolls as possible to prevent it from raising out of the trench and kinking.

[Darren]

I drove 3 T posts in the center of 2" coils of 200# poly. I made up a fitting for the end to hook up the tractor and unwind the coil as I drove away. If you're using poly, I highly recommend the Ford fittings with inserts to avoid leaks in the future. They cost more but that makes it a one and done installation in your lifetime.

I use two spud bars when I back fill small sizes like 1". Put the blunt end down and lean it against the side of the trench so it doesn't fall in. Then I place the remainder of the bedding on top. Usually I can alternatively move the spud bars as I move down the trench to hold the pipe down flat. The two bars forming a V in the picture are the two spud bars. For larger sizes use a concrete block to hold it down.

The wood handled shovel in the second picture was used to hold the plastic pipe off the side of the trench to avoid rocks until the bedding sand was in around the pipe.

[farminghandyman]

I have pipe that is about 2000 feet to a hydrant, and my windmill pumps 265 up and about 3000 feet horizontally to the storage tank, and up 20 feet in the storage tank, and the tank is about 20 feet above the windmill,

if you use a reasonable size pipe the pressure drop will be very minimal,

Think about it how far is city water piped? in some locations there is rural water districts that have miles and miles of lines that feed houses and farms,

[ralph perrello]

1 1/4" pipe from well to house and be precisely sure the wire to the pump (if you are using a submersible pump) is large enough for the distance or you will quickly burn out the pump motor.