New construction and needing help!

Users who are viewing this thread

Uphill

New Member
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Arkansas
Problem at hand:
I’m up 240’ from the main with regulator removed. My line is 1” Poly that is about 1/4 mile long. Getting 2.5 GPM (or a touch) over from the frost free hydrant in front of the house. I am unsure of the pressure at this time.

House: 60x70 shop home. Roughly 30x70 living and the same on the ship side. 3 full baths and a forth toilet. Just my wife my self and my toddler now with another on the way. Building has 16’ sidewalls and we will have hot water tank, HVAC, etc. mounted over the laundry room.

The water is not hooked into the house yet as we are still building. I planned on putting an inline booster near the water heater but learning I may not have the demanded supply in the line.. Then found a city booster system with tank and pump combined.. but it requires 10gpm minimum.

I am not opposed to a storage tank but would like to do one small enough to mount up with the hot water heater. I’d prefer not to bury it.

Please help me out. I’m running out of time and need to get this sorted out. I will provide anymore information I possibly can, just ask. Thank you so much!
 

Reach4

Well-Known Member
Messages
38,797
Reaction score
4,412
Points
113
Location
IL
I’m up 240’ from the main with regulator removed. My line is 1” Polly that is about 1/4 mile long. Getting 2.5 GPM (or a touch) over from the frost free hydrant in front of the house. I am unsure of the pressure at this time.
Garden hose thread pressure gauges are widely available, and under $20-- often far under.
 

Terry

The Plumbing Wizard
Staff member
Messages
29,942
Reaction score
3,458
Points
113
Location
Bothell, Washington
Website
terrylove.com
A standard one-bath home with kitchen sink, dishwasher, water heater, clothes-washer, 1.6 tank toilet, lavatory, tub/shower combo and two hose bibs would be counted as 18 fixture units.

Most standard two bath homes consisting of kitchen sink, dishwasher, water heater, clothes-washer, two 1.6 tank toilet, two lavatories, one shower, one tub/shower combo, and two hose bibs would be counted as 23.5 fixture units.

Most standard three bath homes consisting of kitchen sink, dishwasher, water heater, clothes-washer, three 1.6 tank toilet, four lavatories, two showers, one tub/shower combo, one whirlpool bath and two hose bibs would be counted as 34 fixture units.

water-sizing-chart-terrylove-40-60.jpg
 

Uphill

New Member
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Arkansas
Thank you for the replies. I am still concerned about current flow and pressure I will put a gauge on it to see what I have. Until that time I do not think I will have enough flow or pressure to supply the home. We will not have a whirlpool tub just a tub shower for the kids, and then two more showers. Thank you for the replies. I am still concerned about current flow and pressure I will put a gauge on it to see what I have. Until that time I do not think I will have enough flow or pressure to supply the home. We will not have a whirlpool tub just a tub shower for the kids, and then two more showers. I will report back when I get a pressure from the frost free hydrant

With the given flow information do you think a standard pump with pressure tank would suffice or am I going to need a storage tank?
 

Valveman

Cary Austin
Staff member
Messages
14,599
Reaction score
1,296
Points
113
Location
Lubbock, Texas
Website
cyclestopvalves.com
If 2.5 GPM is all you are getting, you can't just put a booster pump on the line. Anytime you try to use more than 2.5 GPM you won't have enough water to supply the pump. Even with 2.5 GPM coming in, you will need a fairly good size cistern to make up the difference. If you use 10 GPM for 10 minutes you will need 100 gallons. When drawing out 10 GPM while the feed is refilling at 2,5 GPM, you have 7.5 GPM difference. 10 minutes at 7.5 GPM means you need at least a 75 gallon size cistern. Larger would be even better.

LOW YIELD WELL_ CENTRIFUGAL_PK1A.jpg
 

Uphill

New Member
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Arkansas
If 2.5 GPM is all you are getting, you can't just put a booster pump on the line. Anytime you try to use more than 2.5 GPM you won't have enough water to supply the pump. Even with 2.5 GPM coming in, you will need a fairly good size cistern to make up the difference. If you use 10 GPM for 10 minutes you will need 100 gallons. When drawing out 10 GPM while the feed is refilling at 2,5 GPM, you have 7.5 GPM difference. 10 minutes at 7.5 GPM means you need at least a 75 gallon size cistern. Larger would be even better.

View attachment 70239


Thanks!! Where can I find a 100 gallon or so tank, I’m not having much luck. I’d like to find a cylinder type tank shaped kind of like a water heater.
 

Uphill

New Member
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Arkansas
Actually may have just found one. I notice it doesn’t have an inlet and outlet if I read it correctly. Excuse my ignorance but I will need to bring the water supply in, then what ever my pump supply size needs to be out and then 1/2” to the house. I think I have a shop bathroom I can mount this tank in on the ground. Then pump through the house. The pump with probably be mounted over head if possible by the water heater- about 10.5’ centrally located in the home over the utility room.

does this sound like it will work? If need be I may be able to put the tank overhead as well? Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
 

Attachments

  • BA165662-F244-49F8-827A-53BE9D6126C9.png
    BA165662-F244-49F8-827A-53BE9D6126C9.png
    166.1 KB · Views: 140
  • EBB26AE4-869A-4B13-9517-C2A930781EB3.png
    EBB26AE4-869A-4B13-9517-C2A930781EB3.png
    198.8 KB · Views: 134

wwhitney

In the Trades
Messages
6,532
Reaction score
1,822
Points
113
Location
Berkeley, CA
Problem at hand:
I’m up 240’ from the main with regulator removed. My line is 1” Polly that is about 1/4 mile long.
Is it really a 240' elevation difference from your utility connection to your house? That would be a 104 psi loss due to gravity alone. If you're getting 2.5 gpm at the end of 1300' of water lateral, and your pipe ID is 1", that's only a 3 psi drop due to flow, so your pressure at the water main would be about 107 psi. Possibly more due to the pressure drop from the frost free hydrant.

Cheers, Wayne
 

Uphill

New Member
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Arkansas
Is it really a 240' elevation difference from your utility connection to your house? That would be a 104 psi loss due to gravity alone. If you're getting 2.5 gpm at the end of 1300' of water lateral, and your pipe ID is 1", that's only a 3 psi drop due to flow, so your pressure at the water main would be about 107 psi. Possibly more due to the pressure drop from the frost free hydrant.

Cheers, Wayne

yessir, that is very close based on the phone mapping. We started with a 90lb regulator on the meter and the water didn’t make it to my frost free hydrant. So we removed the regulator all together. It’s a very small town and they did not have a gauge at the time of installing the meter but they estimated the pressure at the meter well over 100psi for what that is worth.

I do have a neighbor that’s right around the same height as me but long story short we have not quite hit it off yet.. I do know he has a pump at his house with a tank but I’m not sure of the details. He did tell me that without the pump he still gets water out of fixtures but it is very minimal. I just need to gather the materials to get a system quickly. I should be in the dry at the end of this week or next and will need to have the plumber rough in.
 

wwhitney

In the Trades
Messages
6,532
Reaction score
1,822
Points
113
Location
Berkeley, CA
yessir, that is very close based on the phone mapping.
So if you put a water pressure gauge on your yard hydrant, what static pressure reading do you get? And what is the elevation of the that gauage relative to various water usage points in your house? I.e. upstairs shower might be the highest usage point, and a water heater in the basement might be the lowest.

Oh, and what's the absolute elevation at your yard hydrant?

Cheers, Wayne
 

wwhitney

In the Trades
Messages
6,532
Reaction score
1,822
Points
113
Location
Berkeley, CA
If 2.5 GPM is all you are getting, you can't just put a booster pump on the line. Anytime you try to use more than 2.5 GPM you won't have enough water to supply the pump.
Maybe you can clarify something for me, as I don't know much about pumps.

The OP's water service is fighting 240' of head, and the pressure at the bottom of that rise is just enough to push water up, and he gets 2.5 gpm. What happens if you treat that as an artesian well and put a jet pump on it? A shallow jet pump can lift water 25 ft or so with just equipment at the top of well, if I understand correctly, depending on the air pressure. So it's creating a suction of around 10 psi below atmospheric.

I would think that means that if the OP has only 3 - 5 psi of static pressure at the yard hydrant, which is enough for the 2.5 gpm flow through the 1300' of 1" pipe, then the jet pump would effectively make that 13 - 15 psi, which online calculators tell me would be enough to double the flow to 5 gpm. This presumes that the water service at the bottom of the hill is large enough that there's no significant pressure loss there from 2.5 to 5 gpm.

Is that all correct, or do I misunderstand something?

Cheers, Wayne
 
Last edited:

wwhitney

In the Trades
Messages
6,532
Reaction score
1,822
Points
113
Location
Berkeley, CA
BTW, one option would be to install a pump maybe 25% of the way downhill from the house. If the slope is even (240' over 1300') and depending on the exact pipe ID, a hard hydrant there should flow around 10 gpm. So if 10 gpm were enough for the house, and power could be run to a pump vault there, you could boost the pressure to get 10 gpm to the house.

A cistern at the house may well be easier, but just wanted to throw the option out there.

Cheers, Wayne
 

Valveman

Cary Austin
Staff member
Messages
14,599
Reaction score
1,296
Points
113
Location
Lubbock, Texas
Website
cyclestopvalves.com
Maybe you can clarify something for me, as I don't know much about pumps. T

The OP's water service is fighting 240' of head, and the pressure at the bottom of that rise is just enough to push water up, and he gets 2.5 gpm. What happens if you treat that as an artesian well and put a jet pump on it? A shallow jet pump can lift water 25 ft or so with just equipment at the top of well, if I understand correctly, depending on the air pressure. So it's creating a suction of around 10 psi below atmospheric.

I would think that means that if the OP has only 3 - 5 psi of static pressure at the yard hydrant, which is enough for the 2.5 gpm flow through the 1300' of 1" pipe, then the jet pump would effectively make that 13 - 15 psi, which online calculators tell me would be enough to double the flow to 5 gpm. This presumes that the water service at the bottom of the hill is large enough that there's no significant pressure loss there from 2.5 to 5 gpm.

Is that all correct, or do I misunderstand something?

Cheers, Wayne

A jet pump can only draw water up from like 24'. If the flow gets up to 10 GPM, there may be less head pressure in the line than a negative 24'. If not, the jet pump would work. We do this all the time. But for a jet pump to work the supply must keep up with demand and I am not sure that is possible in this application.
 

wwhitney

In the Trades
Messages
6,532
Reaction score
1,822
Points
113
Location
Berkeley, CA
A jet pump can only draw water up from like 24'. If the flow gets up to 10 GPM, there may be less head pressure in the line than a negative 24'. If not, the jet pump would work.
Yeah, I don't think a jet pump will get up to 10 gpm for the OP, but my calculations suggest 5 gpm, which is better than 2.5 gpm.

So here's where my knowledge of pumps is lacking--can other pumps beside jet pumps lift water? Maybe most types only lift a couple feet, unlike the jet pump which can do 24'?

Cheers, Wayne
 

Reach4

Well-Known Member
Messages
38,797
Reaction score
4,412
Points
113
Location
IL
Yeah, I don't think a jet pump will get up to 10 gpm for the OP, but my calculations suggest 5 gpm, which is better than 2.5 gpm.

So here's where my knowledge of pumps is lacking--can other pumps beside jet pumps lift water? Maybe most types only lift a couple feet, unlike the jet pump which can do 24'?
There are multi-stage pumps that can lift. This is F&W, for example.
329218-63.gif
 

Uphill

New Member
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Arkansas
So to answer a few questions that came up. It’s pretty well flat run of 1” (1” entire length) for the first 600 foot or so. No power near the meter. Then a pretty steep climb that goest up a hill through the woods and crosses my private road into the yard and a mild climb up to the house. I like the idea of tank and pump under roof for ease of Maintanace and power supply.

the house is a single story with 3 full bath, an additional toilet, washer, dishwasher, refrigerator. There will very seldom be 2 showers running at one for at least a few years anyway. But shower and washer or dishwasher probably frequently. The hot water tank will be stored overhead (shop house)

another option I may have if the water will make it past the house and climb a hill on the other side of the house (I was going to test with a garden hose) then I could bury a tank up hill of the house and let it gravity feed to a pump in the house???

May this time I still don’t know what the hydrant pressure is but I know it cannot me much.

thank you all!!
 

wwhitney

In the Trades
Messages
6,532
Reaction score
1,822
Points
113
Location
Berkeley, CA
Is there electrical power present (service or feeder) anywhere near the water lateral in the region that is say 100' to 200' up from the water utility connection point?

If so, you could presumably tap that for electrical power and have a booster pump in a vault. At least I assume that's a thing.

Say you want 10 gpm at your yard hydrant 240' up, with a residual pressure of 30 psi. The elevation pressure loss for 240' is 104 psi and the frictional loss in 1300 ft of plastic piping with an ID of 1.0" is 39 psi (but only 25 psi if the ID is 1.1", as is true of some type of nominal 1" pipe). So if the utility service were 173 psi, you wouldn't need any booster, you'd be good to go (although your water lateral would need to have that high a rating).

Your utility pressure seems to be around 110 psi, so you'd need a pump that could boost pressure around 65 psi at 10 gpm. The elevation of the booster pump would be limited by not being so low that the boosted pressure would be too high for your pipe, but not so high that the city pressure can't get 10 gpm up to the booster, given the frictional losses of the 1" pipe

Just wanted to develop somewhat the idea as an alternative to water storage near your house, in case it is of interest.

Cheers, Wayne
 

Uphill

New Member
Messages
16
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
Arkansas
There is no power near the meter or the line all the way to where the lateral will go into the house, power is coming up the other side of the hill all together. Let’s take any sort of pump outside the house out of the equation, it’s just not really an option.

this weekend I should know what kind of pressure I have at the hydrant that is very close to where it will go in the house. Right now I’m wanting to put a tank either in the house on the floor and will pump water throughout.
Or
Put the tank 10-11’ overhead and pump thought the house around 80-100 gallons in size. On the floor I would like a taller cylinder type tank. .. overhead I’d like to use something like an rv cubical type storage tank that will spread the weight out more.

or like mentioned before... if the city will push the water up the hill past the house, I can bury a storage tank and let it gravity take is back down to the house and through a pump. This would put the tank roughly 30-40 ft above slab about 30ish yards away... which of these options sound better?

another thought- since the water supply I have is constant (as long as the main doesn’t break) would it be possible just to plumb the main feed into a large well style pressure tank?? If I had a large pressure tank that held say 50 (ex) gallons and would be constantly being replaced at 2.5 GPM, could that work..? Or even compound tanks? I’m new at all this so sorry for all the questions but this water supply is very important and the last piece of the puzzle for our home.

thank you!!
 
Last edited:
Top
Hey, wait a minute.

This is awkward, but...

It looks like you're using an ad blocker. We get it, but (1) terrylove.com can't live without ads, and (2) ad blockers can cause issues with videos and comments. If you'd like to support the site, please allow ads.

If any particular ad is your REASON for blocking ads, please let us know. We might be able to do something about it. Thanks.
I've Disabled AdBlock    No Thanks