Water line under footing: one in, one out
I am building an oversized garage with living space over the car bays. Water line from well will come in under the footing. Footing is 4′ below grade. Water line is another 10-12 inches down. I have a 3″ PVC sleeve under the footing to guide the poly water line. We’ll bring the water line to the pressure tank then have the floor poured (4″ reinforced concrete). This seems pretty straight forward. The structure is scheduled to be completed by October. Next spring we’ll start the main house. Main house will be detached (about 25 feet from the garage). The question I have is “What to do about bringing a water line from the garage where the pressure tank is located to the main house?” My thinking is to add another sleeve under the footing now andcontinue with a 3″ PVC pipe up from the sleeve to near the pressure tank. That way I can run a poly water line from the garage to the main house (IF I can snake a water line back down the 3″ PVC pipe). The horizontal distance from where the pressure tank will be to the center of th efooting is about 4 feet. I sure would appreciate any thoughts on whether this all sounds like the way to go. Also, should I run the water line from garage now and just stub it off a few feet from where it leaves from under the footing or wait till next spring to run one continuous line from the garage to the main house? Thanks.
Replies
You might want to add a pit of sorts near the tank in the garage so that you don't have to elbow the sleeves. Would make for easier fishing.
Why not
install the water lines now, without sleeves? Have the excavator open up ditches as needed so you can run from the well to the garage, and from the garage to the house. Install your lines in the ditches, bed them in sand, and fill in the ditches. At the house site you'll have a piece of pipe sticking up out of the ground, waiting for you. Try to get the line to the house as close as possible to where you want it.
I have sometimes installed 2" or even 3" PVC electrical conduit as underground raceway for PEX piping, but it's a lot of extra money and you can't make too many turns or go too far before the pulls get really hard.
I'm with David on this one. Install both water lines now. I use sleeves going through concrete, but just a sand bed when the pipe goes under a footing, I'll also use sleeves and a sand bed when going under a driveway.
You can deadend the pipe near the house in a "bucket vault" and mark the location with a high stake and flaging tape. A "bucket vault" is a five gallon bucket with a hole cut in the side for the pipe to enter/ leave and the top snapped back on it, then buried. That make things a lot easier when digging it up in the future. You don't have the problem of a backhoe or shovel finding the water line first, and if you ruin the bucket you are not out an expensive water vault.
reply to water lines under footing
Thanks for your suugestions. I'll make sure both water lines are run now. Thanks again.
Obviously there's more than just
water. You need to run electrical, low-voltage, gas, etc., also.
One electric meter? Is the main panel going to be in the house, with a sub in the garage? If so, you need the house feed established with a panel of some sort installed to feed the garage.
Phone, internet, cable TV, etc.? Probably good to run a conduit now for all of those, and a second one as backup for future-proofing. I have a couple of UF romex lines run from house to shop. One lets me turn on shop exterior lights from the house, as well as switched in the shop. Second one is for backup, in case something else is needed.
In general, at this point in a project, you need to do all of the utility planning and install a bunch of pipe and wire in the ground, with risers coming up at key points for later connection.
Use conduit sweeps
You will have a lot better succes, installing the poly or pex line later, if use elctrical conduit sweep 90's. They have larger radius, so that you can easily pull wire through it. Which will also make it easier to pull the poly lines later.
Also, it wouldn't really matter to the water system if you tee'd into the l9ine outside the building. The pressure seen at the house will still be the same.