water pipe for irrigation

[CharlieTR]

I would like to trench in an irrigation pipe from the house to 20 Pecan trees. I want to get some of that black pipe in long rolls, but the guy at the hardware store said that was for dairy farm use only and not able to handle PSI for home use.
Another hardware guy said my only choice is PVC or steel.
What PSI rating do I need? I saw TSC has some rated at 160 PSI, is that high enough?

[Bird]

Charlie, I'm certainly no plumber, and I don't know how many kinds of the black stuff (polyethylene) in rolls there are, but I had a neighbor who ran over a thousand feet of it from his water meeter to his house more than 15 years ago and has never had a leak. We had about 80 psi water pressure. But of course, if it were me, I'd probably go with schedule 40 PVC.

[GaryQWA]

LOL.. it's okay for farm pressures but not a house... dumb dumb dumb.... most farm pressures are equal to or higher than any house. My house on city water has had the same piece of PE for over 30 years.

PE commonly comes in ratings of 75, 100, 125, 160 and 200 psi. Basically the rating you use depends on how deep you have to bury it and the type of soil you have. Here in the middle of PA, for well water line, we go 30-40" deep for frost and don't use less than 160 psi with submersible pumps and 125 for jet pumps. Keep especially sharp rocks from under and on it and double oppose clamp it and let it wind from side to side in the trench for expansion/contraction and it's good for a few decades.

PE is the best choice and much better than PVC with it's bell ends or couplers every 10-20' and the same for steel along with it's rusting/clogging problems.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[Pat]

Gary, Amen! There is a lot of poly pipe (comes in rolls) burried around these parts. It is a good solution and economical. The contractor that installed our rural water districts lines installed poly from the meter to my mom's house (1 1/2 inch) but when they did my house they used 20 ft lengths of 2 inch PVC with bells and rubber gaskets. It was a trade, I provided laydown space for their materials and equipment and they ran both water lines. As mine is in the 600-800 ft range (never measured) I'm glad they lent larger.

One downside of shallow burried roll piping is GOPHERS! Lots of shallow laid roll pipe has been chewed by critters.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I can see that going to engineering skool was a complete waste of time. I should have simply gone to the local hardware store and asked THEM how to apply various equipment and how to make complicated decisions about friction loss, elevation, and velocity head. You can EASILY get enough "bum steers" at the local hardware store to go into the "bum" cattle bidness. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Dave, I see you now understand the error of your ways. If you had only polled a few "guys" clerking at stores you could have saved a lot of wasted time, money, and effort going to school.

Recently I called tech support at my ISP and was told that to increase the range of my wireless network I could put the antenna in a Pringles can to make it highly directional or try various configurations of aluminum foil on the antennas. Why not spunk water and dead cats at the graveyard during a full moon at midnight? (Apologies to Sam Clemens.)

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[GaryQWA]

The antenna in a can is called a cantenna, and they work very well.
http://www.binarywolf.com/249/pringles_cantenna.htm

Another version, minus the can is the Yagi.
http://tinyurl.com/col72

Maybe a quick read here would help... [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
http://tinyurl.com/syzdd

Here is another twist on a DIY antenna.
http://www.usbwifi.orcon.net.nz/

And my favorite type.
http://www.trevormarshall.com/biquad.htm

Gary
Quality Water Associates

[BlueRidge]

[img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]


Pat, I think he gotcha!

[speedbump]

Gary,

I didn't know you were into antennas!

bob...

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Will everyone who has watched the Ed Sullivan "shew" using a coat hanger and aluminum foil please raise their hand. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]