Water pipe from Well

Some metal content...I need to possibly replace a 40+ year old galvanized pipe from well house to house about 20 feet away. The pressure drop in the pipe while under flow has gradually been increasing over the last few years, due to restrictions from rust and mineral deposits. The line is buried 36" to 48" deep, and I believe it is a straight run, (I did not put it in). Unfortunatly in the many years since it was buried, a hickory and a pine 12" to 15" diameter have grown up near the line. I have a backhoe, but I'm sure digging it up would probably harm the tree roots, and I would rather not have to cut them down. I'd like to replace the old galvanized line with a new line of galvanized steel or copper, but instead of 3/4" diam, something like 1 1/4" for minimal pressure drop to the house, (we do a lot of plant watering). Thoughts on non invasive methods of replacing the line are needed! Some ideas I had - maybe not good ones are the following:

Pipe dream 1.) Take 2" pipe which I have on hand, and fit one end with a hollow cutter like a rota-broach. This would then be pushed over the existing 3/4" pipe, while rotating it with a portable pipe threading head, which I could borrow. I would also be feeding water in the open end of the pipe via a rotary coupling to help flush the "tool". Hopefully the tool would follow the existing straight pipe run to the well house 20 feet away, and I could simply use the 2" pipe as a chase for the new 1 1/4" water line.

Pipe dream 2.) Pull the old pipe with a hydraulic puller into the house's walk in basement, while using the well house end of the old pipe to pull in the new pipe. Plastic line could be used, but I like the additional grounding of a metallic line, ( I have a 8' grounding rod at the main service entrance and at the shop sub panel), as I do a bit of TIG welding w/HF and I also think it helps with lightning protection to have as much grounding area as possible. Pulling may not work if there is a union underground which is a distinct possibility.

Pipe dream 3.) make a water lance from 1/2" steel pipe, connect it to a hose from the water outlet in the well house and use it to washout a enough of a channel below the existing pipe to help free it up.

Pipe dream 4.) Try and rod out the existing 3/4" 40 year old water line.

Or lastly, call a company that does water jet or Hydraulic pipe installation under roadways, drives etc. Not sure what the cost on this would be...I do have garage door access to the basement end of the pipe for a reasonably sized machine if needed, but would need to move some equipment out of the way.

Reply to
oldjag
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=EF=BF=BDPlastic line could be used, but I like

oldjag

Check to see if your local authorities still go along with metallic pipe as a grounding medium. Some don't.

Bob AZ

Reply to
Bob AZ

Faced with a similar problem, I firmly attached the end of a coil of plastic pipe to the existing buried pipe with a coupler and pulled the new pipe in place using the old pipe as a leader. Worked a treat and thoroughly tested the clutch in a friend's truck. (He was driving!)

That said, this was done in very wet clay. I don't know how it would work in other kinds of soil. Obviously an unknown tee would obviate this plan.

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

i have also seen this done, pulling copper to replace my parent's rusty gal service. I asked the plumber what happened if it broke, he stated the obvious, measure and dig a hole and start again! worst is digging a hole every few feet, compared with the complete trench. A tree in the way would make it difficult though~

russ (Melbourne, australia).

Reply to
x

Why not just dig a U around the tree? It'll cost a bit more in work and time but it's not like you'll be trenching by hand. Karl

Reply to
kfvorwerk

I think all 4 pipedreams are doable. I would try #4. Install a couple of unions at the house end and you could open it up an work on it whenever SWMBO is mad at you and you are down in the basement anyway. Karl's U-shapped trench idea's not bad either. #1 sound like a good idea but lots of work and a big mess in the basement.

CarlBoyd

Reply to
Carl

I have driven a 2" hole for 12 feet to install a gas line under a driveway. I used 2" conduit with a beefed-up "cookie cutter" head and close-fitting cap on the driving end to keep the thin-wall from collapsing under the pounding of a 10-pound sledge. (Lathe project, for RCM purists.) I missed my target by about 4 inches. In your case, you could put a pilot on the cutter to guide it down the hole after pulling the existing pipe. You would need to prepare to join a second 12-foot section after sinking the first one all the way. Leave the conduit in place and run plastic pipe through it for your water supply. Check your building codes for the correct plastic pipe.

Reply to
jwdoylejr

Why not just dig a U around the tree? It'll cost a bit more in work and time but it's not like you'll be trenching by hand. Karl

I am with Karl on this one. if the straight line distance is 20 feet and you like your trees where they are just skirt around them and abandon the old pipe run.

Be sure to document the route you choose and pass it on to any subsequent owners. Also think about where to plant new trees and things.

The strongest argument to not doing it the ways you were dreaming up is that that Mr. Murphy is always lurking about waiting to pounce. Once you cut the water line you have, to be clever in its replacement, you are committed as you (And perhaps more importantly your wife.) will be without water, and if you run into a snag you will get all the blame for as long as the misses has a memory.

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

An afternoon and a $150 rental of a hydraulic trencher and you'll be done with it.

Reply to
Pete C.

I plan to install a temporary above ground line to supply water to the house while doing this little project. I'm going ahead with method #1 tomorrow as I figure I don't have much to lose....if it works great, if not well I would have to dig anyway. My biggest concern if getting the hollow boring tool to pass over any unions. A line coupling won't be an issue, but a standard union OD is pretty close to my 2" sched 40 pipe ID. Brought home a portable 3/4" mag drill with gear reduction to rotate the tool. The mag drill will be fixtured on an angle plate bolted to piece of 3/8" thick 12" wide by 36" long steel channel. The channel will sit on a cart, forming my "drill rig". Plan to run water through the existing pipe while drilling to help flush the cuttings. Tool wil be a 2" pipe coupling with four tool steel "wings". Hey; if this works reasonably well I might even use it to run a line for another water outlet she has been asking for in the front yard! Off to Home Despot to get some couplings..

Reply to
oldjag

Nah, your all a bunch of softies - use a pick and shovel, like we used to in the Old Days....

Andrew VK3BFA.

Reply to
vk3bfa

An afternoon and a $150 rental of a hydraulic trencher and you'll be done with it.

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Reply to
Robert Swinney

On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:44:05 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, "Pete C." quickly quoth:

I'm with you, Pete. Trench and replace. If the nearby trees don't make it, they don't make it. [BTW, Roger: trees shouldn't be that close to the house anyway. It's both unsafe (limbs, or the entire tree, can drop right onto your house) and unsanitary (dropped bark/leaves promote moss/water leaks on roof.)]

But I'd put in a 1-1/2" or larger casing and run the real water line through it, so it could be easily fished through the next time it goes out. I'm thinking about doing the exact same thing here at my house. There's an 18" holly stump near the water line and I already have the stump dug out about a foot and a half deep. I think the tap root is even larger than the above-ground portion of the tree was, damnit.

-- Imagination is more important than knowledge... Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Why bother with galvanized iron? It'll only rot through in another 40 years or less. Replace with HDPE and have done with it.

On the trees, If the OP hasn't cut the roots back too close to the trunks, the trees will survive quite happily.

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Nobody should be using galv. pipe these days, the service life is way too short. I do like the idea of using conduit and pulling new oversized PE or ABS line inside it. The cost for a couple lengths of 2" PVC conduit to sleeve the run is pretty negligible.

Yes, and with the trencher you can curve the trench a bit and the line with or without conduit will readily flex to fit a modest curve. Even without curving, at most you could get half the tree's roots and most will survive even that.

Reply to
Pete C.

Be carefull what you place the puller against. According to some clever sod (whose name I forgot), every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. That means you will be pulling the pipe into the house OR you will be pulling the house towards the pipe. Some of your cellar may head off towards the well cracking away from the rest of the wall as it does so.

John

Reply to
John

Quite true, but that can be solved with large amounts of cribbing.

Get the pressure spread out against a large expanse of cellar wall, so you can build up tons of tension with a porta-power cylinder...

Which flies across the room and makes a hell of a mess out of the furnace when the old water pipe you were pulling on snaps.

Or worse, through the picture tube of the (now former) family room big-screen TV set. Think Wii Sports, r.c.m style.

Moral: Dig a trench, go around the tree. Sometimes it doesn't pay to try and save labor - it ends up costing a lot more in the end.

-->--

Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

A friend told the story about the road maintenance crew cleaning ditches in a rural area. About the time the machine operator realized that it wasn't a tree root that he was pulling on, the housewife came screaming out the kitchen door claiming that he was pulling her cook stove across the kitchen. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller

messagenews:4Lkik.18514$ snipped-for-privacy@flpi146.ffdc.sbc.com...

I competed the job over last weekend, actual drilling time was probably a few hours. I spent most of the time scrounging the various plumbing items needed, and then cleaning up afterwards. I made the drill head from a 2" pipe coupling that I inset and TIG welded 4 tool steel cutters onto. The ID of the cutter was about 1.25" and the OD. was about 3". I used the existing 3/4 galvanized pipe as a guide to pilot the cutter from the basement in the house to the well pit. I used 2" shed 40 pipe to drive the cutter. The pipe was coupled via a recycled U joint and an adapter to the Mag Drill. The Mag drill was placed on a heavy right angle plate bolted to a scrap 12" x 36" steel channel. The channel sat on the garden wagon, and the whole rig was rolled towards the wall as drilling progressed and pipe sectiones were added. The horizontal bore was 22' feet long and varied from 36" to

50" below grade. At several times we ran into an abandoned length of BX that was buried adjacent to the old water pipe. This threatened to jam up the cutter several times, but eventually the cutter would win out. Water to help clear the cuttings was being run into the pipe at all times when drilling, via the old pipe. The sched.40 2" pipe was left in place after drilling for use as a chase for the poly tubing from the well to the house. The hole came out large enough to also sneak in a 3/4" PVC conduit for a new power run to the well house. No damage to the tree roots, and no backfilling required!
Reply to
oldjag

Congratulations - that is *really* impressive. Projects like this are highly susceptible to "Murphy" complications . For me, no matter how long I think about it & plan, there's always something that I didn't think of that bites me. For your project, I'd probably go through 4 revisions, anyhow.

I bet there was some serious torque involved!

I don't see how running water in the old pipe helped clear the cuttings. Wasn't he old pipe continuous from the house to the well?

Congratulations again. I'll bet that you have confounded some RCM readers who thought that you'd never be able to do it!

How about some pictures of your apparatus?

Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

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