water lines in Central Texas

[pforden]

Hi everybody,

We've been continuing to concentrate on the fencing and animal shelters on our property outside of Austin. We got up about 2K feet of predator fence [a drop in the bucket in relation to the whole property!], 48 inches high, that will have a band of hot rope above it. We also have built a half a hexagon barnyard with 60'sides and gates on each side so that we can radiate electrified netting out for our sheep pasture and can rotate pastures. The sheep shelter is a pole building. We were able to buy excellent poles for building poles and fence posts from a nearby sawmill, so that we have untreated wood everywhere on the property now. These poles have been fairly cheap, about $85 for 25 8'x5" posts, for example. This beats t posts, I think, though it is more work in some ways to put in! We rented a tractor to auger the post holes.

Now we are working on the infrastructure for the Grandfather Cottage. This month we are dealing with the water line and with the electrical service.

The water line from the meter needs to travel up a slight rise about 500 feet. Then we want water to diverge in two directions, one to go another 400 feet to the site of the little barns and the Cottage, one to go to the future site of a larger barn and house, probably 250 - 300 feet, all uphill. From the ends of this service, we will be wanting to extend the water service farther back -- likely about another 800 feet downhill from the point where we'll be stopping now. (For the back of the land we are expecting to be able to drill a small well and irrigate by pumping from a pond.)

Pretty much everyone in our county uses PVC. We would like to use 400 foot lengths polyethylene, probably 1 3/4 or two inch -- whatever the meter service gives us, which offhand I remember as 2". Has anyone had experience running the polyethylene this distance? We will be using a two feet trench, which is typical for the area.

Who knows where we can get a book or instructions for working with the polyethylene lines, making junctions, etc.? We are complete novices at all this stuff. Lacking a book or whatever, does anybody have experiences you can share. Thanks a lot.

Penny  

[jraabe]

Hi Penny:

The George Nash book I mention in the book review section (number 2 on this list: http://www.countryplans.com/books.html) has a good review of plumbing options and working with different types of materials.

Here is a quick search for a book on this: http://books.google.com/books?id=04kb-KPoJb8C&dq=how+to+work+with+polyethylene+pipe&pg=PR381&ots=wlnY5s71DW&sig=aZ29iv2fHXCcBq8GJop1lakp0KE&prev=http://www.google.com/search%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%26q%3Dhow%2Bto%2Bwork%2Bwith%2Bpolyethylene%2Bpipe&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=3

This topic isn't really related to the building plans so you may get more views and suggestions if you post in the General forum.