Burying water lines in pure rock?

kasilofhome · #21 02/26/13, 05:24 PM

I vote to cover it. I have put dirt and stall cleanings into feed bags and I am building up a wall. then cover with dirt and plant. It takes time --I am a busy person I have to limit my out side stuff to when dh is asleep or someone is with him.

I find that putting the dirt in the feed bags prevented the animals from tearing up the mound of dirt to make a comfy resting spot in the sun.

Darren · #22 02/26/13, 07:19 PM

I had that situation. I used a jackhammer to break out the rock down to 36" for a 2" line going straight up a hill with almost no soil cover.. I used sand mixed with bentonite inside geotextile to create in the trench obstacles to the water flow and bed the pipe.

After I backfilled to the original ground level, I used rocks to armor the trench below. I've never had any problems since.

vicker · #23 02/26/13, 10:53 PM

An good old West Virginia man told me this, "Clay is a poor insulator, try to use loam or sandy loam. If you're burying where there is no traffic to pack the soil it doesn't have to be all that deep, a foot would be plenty." It worked for me on a very steep hillside. I dug a shallow trench along the hillside, layed my pipe and pulled dirt down on top of it with a mattock. It never froze. It was an eastern facing slope.

CJBegins · #24 02/27/13, 01:39 AM

Sparticle, my vote is for a rock saw also. The phone company came in with one to bury a phone line and it was fast and it went deep. When we had our sewer line dug with a big backhoe, they really struggled to get it deep enough and in some areas the lines aren't deep enough. When we decide to run water to the barn we will be using the rock saw. It makes such a short job of it.

Where my house sits is a huge rock. The house, yard, most of the barn yard all sit on this rock. Everything that gets driven into the ground requires a bobcat with a jackhammer attackment or dynamite like my dad used to do.

Sparticle · #25 02/27/13, 08:34 AM

Thanks for all the tips everyone, I'm processing :-)

Sparticle · #26 02/27/13, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davel745

There is an attachment for excavators that can rip out rock. I don’t know how well it works and I think it may be slow going but it may be the best way to go.

Well it's also a trail through the woods, so we can't get big equipment in there either.

Sparticle · #27 02/27/13, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bret4207

What I did where my water lines run over horizontal ledge is to put down 2" of foam board, lay the pipe on it, put 2" foam 10" wide on either side, another 24" wide hunk of foam on that and then bury it all by covering it with manure and bedding right out of the spreader about 2 foot deep. It obviously helps to have a barn that needs cleaning to do this.

Even though we're off-grid, we can get dumptruck loads of mulch from the power company. Something to think about.

Sparticle · #28 02/27/13, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by texican

You could cover the pipe with clay like you did before (or with whatever) and then put geo fabric over it, and anchor it down with rocks on the side. The geo fabric is what they put down for road construction to stabilize/hold loose soil. Made out of fiberglass, so it never rots. I got ten loads of free gravel years back, but it 'included' giant wads and strips of the geo fabric. I get pieces of it (that I couldn't 'spread' on the road) and put it in mudholes before I throw gravel in... this keeps the hole from just swallowing the gravel.

There are tools/machinery that can do what you want done. Ten years ago, the average price was $800/day. Probably more now. "Anything" can be solved, if you throw enough money at it... One of my relatives has a road boring business... one job he lost money on big time... it wasn't disclosed beforehand, but the bore was through granite... took a week to do what usually is done in an afternoon.

What kind of rock? Sandstone, limestone??

I know there is some sandstone, and the name of the other escapes me. It sparks sometimes when you hit it though. Tanish color, very ragged edges.

fordy · #29 02/27/13, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparticle

We need to protect our water lines from our water source to the cistern. The waterlines currently run over ground. The first hill the water lines pass is pure rock. There are rocks loose on the top of the ground and the ground is pretty much pure rock. It will be very difficult to bury them. It's also a pretty good distance. We had to use a jackhammer when putting our cistern in and that was so horrible we ended up hacking it away with a pick axe.

We tried for a few hundred feet to cover the lines with clay soil, but rain and animals have uncovered a good bit of that test. Maybe we didn't use enough dirt?

I think it would be easier to make a 2-3 foot hill over the lines and quickly seed it with rye to hold the soil in place till the weeds moved in.

No a ram pump is not possible right now either.

Any other ideas? Is there some magical way to insulate the lines without burying or covering?

..........Why not mix your own blasting powder ? You can buy fusing to ignite with ! An RV park owner I worked for simply ordered the 3 ingredients , mixed them all up in a cement mixer then he'd dig a small hole into the rock , pour in a quantity of powder and Boom ! Entirely legal according to him !
..........Of course one day , whilst a mixing away , the power Xploded and drove the mixer 30 feet under his double wide severing plumbing and wires and other attachments ! His ex stripper girlfriend was really in a Snitt cause it screwed up her morning constitutional in the Hot tub .
...........This person wasn't very bright cause he would order carton's of Marlboro ciggs made exclusively for Russians that had an extra stong dosage of bad chemicals . Guess he thought it made him 'More' of a man ! , fordy

Sparticle · #30 02/28/13, 07:23 AM

hahaha, that is certainly one way of doing it. I think we are going with Texican and other's ideas on how to better cover the lines. The length of the line is just too long and the terrain too rough to do anything like this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by fordy

..........Why not mix your own blasting powder ? You can buy fusing to ignite with ! An RV park owner I worked for simply ordered the 3 ingredients , mixed them all up in a cement mixer then he'd dig a small hole into the rock , pour in a quantity of powder and Boom ! Entirely legal according to him !
..........Of course one day , whilst a mixing away , the power Xploded and drove the mixer 30 feet under his double wide severing plumbing and wires and other attachments ! His ex stripper girlfriend was really in a Snitt cause it screwed up her morning constitutional in the Hot tub .
...........This person wasn't very bright cause he would order carton's of Marlboro ciggs made exclusively for Russians that had an extra stong dosage of bad chemicals . Guess he thought it made him 'More' of a man ! , fordy