Question about temporary pressure tank and yard hydrants

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driftless

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Hi guys, thanks for the great forum here. Helped me install a Grundfos at 300' without a hitch.

So here's the situation: My wife and I bought 40 vacant acres in SW Wisconsin and are living out of a yurt for a couple of years until we can build a house. Last summer we drilled our well (300', water at ~150'), installed the Grundfos SQ-Flex (we are on an off-grid solar system) and ran 1" poly in a 7' deep trench from the pitless to two yard hydrants. The pump is wired directly to a circuit breaker, so we open a hydrant THEN turn on the breaker, fill up containers with water /water the garden, turn off the breaker THEN close the hydrant. I know, I know, I know, we're playing with fire.

We figured we could save some money and live with this for the year or two before we built the house and put in a proper pressure tank system in the basement. Well, as we're getting more animals on the farm and planning our wedding for the fall (on our land) we're thinking it would be really nice to have on demand water, even if only in the summertime. Which brings us to my crazy(?) idea:

Can I run a line from one of the yard hydrants to a pressure tank / switch and still use both hydrants? The first yard hydrant would always be open with a T at it's outlet, one side going to the pressure tank, the other side to a garden hose. That seems like it would work fine to me, but what happens with the other hydrant? When I open hydrant #2, water would flow from the pressure tank back through hydrant #1 to get to hydrant #2. How terrible for the system is that?

This would just be for this summer and next, and then I can move the setup to the basement when I build the house. Can something like this be done, or do I need to dig back down to the buried pipe and just put everything before the hydrants? I'd like to avoid that because my soil is clay and huge rocks (I busted 3 teeth off the bucket of the digger I rented to dig the trench the first time....). And that digger is expensive....

Thanks for looking.
 

LLigetfa

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Maybe draw a picture as my mind's eye cannot. The pressure tank, if it is the captive air bladder type, does not know (nor care) where the water goes once it leaves it. A bladder tank has no separate in versus out port.
 

driftless

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Untitled.jpg

This picture MIGHT help....

I am thinking of a bladder tank, and I feel like it will work. But what I don't know about plumbing would fill a book, so I'm hoping to bounce it off this knowledgeable community.
 

LLigetfa

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Just so long as it doesn't have to go through much of a valve constriction of the hydrant, it would be fine. Instead of Y'ing it after the hydrant, you should Tee before.
 

driftless

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Yeah, I know it would be best to tee before the hydrants, but that would mean renting that digger again and digging back down the seven feet. And I'm thinking a T after the hydrant, I guess the drawing is misleading. A Y would be really hard on the 'backflow' from the tank to the garden hose, right?. Thanks for the input!!
 

Craigpump

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Why don't you try an in well tank? I have never used one, but I know some people who have and have had good luck with them.
 

driftless

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Interesting! I've never even heard of this.... Just did a quick google and looked at In-Well Technologies products. Does anyone have any direct experience with these? The drawdown is only around a gallon, that's a drawback.
 

LLigetfa

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A lot of jurisdictions now require a spigot at the wellhead. I wonder if they use a different pitless that lets one Tee off the top of it or how they do it.

Do you use a frost-free hydrant where the actual valve is below ground making it hard to Tee off? I don't understand why you bury the pipe so deep for Nevada? It's not like you have frost that deep.
 

driftless

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I'm on the road working right now, my land and the plumbing are in Wisconsin. So yes, it's a frost-free hydrant, buried 7 feet deep.
 

Craigpump

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Jurisdictions that require a spigot on the well? Hmmm never heard of that, I wonder if that's unique to Canada?
 

Craigpump

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Freeze in Wisconsin too...

Martinson makes a pitless that is designed to have a pressure relief valve installed on it, someone could take one of those and fashion a stand pipe up through a well seal and attach a spigot to it.
 

VAWellDriller

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What you want to do will work just fine as a temporary system....the only problem will be if anyone shuts the yard hydrant that the pressure tank and switch are attached to....
 

VAWellDriller

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forgot to add, I tried to buy an in-well tank a couple years ago for a simial project, and every salesman I talked to at my normal distributors said they never worked or lasted long. No personal experience...that's just what I was told.
 

Texas Wellman

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How many panels do you have and what model pump? You need to check how much pressure that set-up can make. Most of the solar pumps are not designed for very much pressure.
 

Valveman

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forgot to add, I tried to buy an in-well tank a couple years ago for a simial project, and every salesman I talked to at my normal distributors said they never worked or lasted long. No personal experience...that's just what I was told.

I am very familiar with the In-Well tank. I have the original patent on it. In-Well Technologies recently sold to Flexcon Industries. In-Well did have some bladder and Schrader valve problems when they first came out. As long as the bladder and Schrader are good, the In-Well type tanks works good. And I am pretty sure Flexcon can make a good bladder and Schrader.

They only hold about ½ of a gallon of water. This makes this tank completely unusable by itself. But with a CSV attached to the inlet side of the tank is works very well, because with a CSV, you don’t need a very large tank.

A lot of people use them in remote locations where the freeze line is deep and a well house in not feasible. For cow water and irrigation the In-Well and CSV combination works very well. For a house system I would add additional tank with a gallon of drawdown somewhere in the house.
 
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