Exposed Water Line

[Tennessee_Pride]

Hello all,

I have a 20 x 30 cabin in east Tennessee.  My water source for this cabin is a small spring on my property that consistently produces around .5 gallons of water per minute.  The spring is located around 1000 feet from the cabin.  The elevation loss from the spring to the cabin is around 80 feet.  At the source of the spring I installed a collection basin that collects the spring water and diverts it to a 300 gallon collection tank that is in close proximity to the spring.  From the tank it is 1000' of water line (w/ a decrease in elevation of 80') to my cabin.  I was surprised that I had great head pressure at the cabin.  My problem is that all of the water line to the cabin is above ground.  This is mainly due to the rough terrain the water line runs across.  Burying the line seems very difficult.  I have tried to allow the water to run at close to the same rate as the spring produces.  This does not seem to be very successful.  I had considered adding a second tank at the cabin and installing some type of pump for my pressure.  This way the line from spring to cabin is trickling down the 2nd. Tank the .5gallons/minute.  This option seems to have some promise but I hate to give up on my gravity fed water.  Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could try.  Since the cabin is used only on weekends then this is the time I have the problems.  When I am not at the cabin I valve off the water at the tank and drain the lines from the cabin.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

[MountainDon]

I'm not sure I understand the issue.  :-/

Is it the potential cold weather freezing of the above ground line from the spring/upper tank to the cabin? If so the only practical solutions are burial, leave the water running and overflowing someplace down at the cabin, or draining and reconnecting on weekends. wrapping with heat tape and insulation would be a poor choice in my mind because of the distance and power requirements.

With an 80 ft drop you would have great pressure; about 35 lbs. or so.

Is that on the right track?

[glenn-k]

I think you have it, Don.

The only other option to burying it below frost line would be mounding above it with waste straw - compost or something, but that is a long way.  If not too rocky and steep a trencher would make pretty short work of it.

Nearly the same pressure and elevation as mine -- good on the numbers, Don.

[eric2802000]

pressure would increase in proportion to the decreasing diameter of the hose. you might want to test that theory before buying 1000' of hose though.

[MountainDon]

pressure would increase in proportion to the decreasing diameter of the hose.

No.

You can not change the pressure in a gravity flow system by changing the pipe/hose size. The only way to increase the pressure in a gravity flow situation is to increase the vertical distance between the tank and the point of delivery, the spigot or whatever. 0.433 pound of pressure per foot of elevation. It's an immutable law of physics.

However, increasing the pipe size can decrease the frictional losses (water flowing against the pipe wall) and give a better flow rate, which is sometimes misinterpreted as an increase in pressure.

[glenn kangiser]

True, Don.  I have a 2" line 600 feet long to my tank which is about 80 feet above the cabin elevation giving me around 35 lbs pressure.  

Don't ever try to plug the end of a 2 inch line with 35 lbs pressure after you break a 1 inch line off of it with the Bobcat.  You will only end up with wet panties. :-/

[desdawg]

That is why God created ball valves. Course you have to put them on before using the Bobcat........

[glenn kangiser]

That is what I ripped off. :-/

Next stop was 300 feet of running to get to the next ball valve in a box on the line  about 20 inches deep. I pulled the 40 lb rock off the top and reached in there only to find that gophers had filled it about 1/2 full of dirt.

After digging around a bit and cleaning it out I found that it was stuck -- grabbed something and stuck it down there and finally got it shut off before I drained the whole 2600 gallons of water. ::

[desdawg]

That sounds like quite a day. I'm surprised the stuck valve didn't break after all of that. That would have been my luck.

[glenn kangiser]

It would have been so easy to just get off of the Bobcat and check to see if the hose was connected to the faucet still.  

Actually it was under the grass and I didn't even see it.  

I was just going to clean out one little area of grass and weeds and that 1/2 minutes  Bobcat work set me off on a 2 day adventure. :-/

Stores were all closed when I  did the deed.