# sizing a water service



## 3 Ts Plumbing (Jan 25, 2011)

I have been asked to size a water service for a home i am plumbing. They have tried to drill a well in two different spots and have not found good water. Now they want tap a city main a mile away. It is pretty level so if any head pressure wont be much. They will be using pure core poly line. He was told by his well contractor that 2" would give him 10 gpm. I dont believe that will be enough being it is a six bath home. And i am guessing a booster pump might be needed. I have never heard of running a home water service this far and have no experience sizing this distance. i am thinking an engineer putting his stamp on this would not be a bad idea?


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## rex (Jul 2, 2007)

fuk that...pay one of them educated idiots to size it

i wouldnt wanna be responsible for that at all...


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## 3 Ts Plumbing (Jan 25, 2011)

yeah thats what i thought. 20-30 grand in trenching and pipe, would hate to be wrong.


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

2" pipe, one mile? does not sound like a good ending to me.


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## 3 Ts Plumbing (Jan 25, 2011)

hope he got a deal on that lot!!


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## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

Drill baby drill. :laughing: 

How deep are you?

By the way, you can't just estimate water size based on length.:laughing: Many other things come in to play......including the CITY department, they may want to share words.

In the end you will have to find a guy that has a rotary rig capable of some depth. You can hit water, keep drilling.

Mike


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## Mike's Plumbing (Jul 19, 2010)

3 T said:


> hope he got a deal on that lot!!


:laughing::laughing::laughing:


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## protechplumbing (Oct 10, 2008)

You need to know the static pressure of the line you are hooking onto first of all. Then you need to figure how many GPM the house will draw at maximum usage.

Plug your numbers into the hazen-williams equation. You want to end up with about 40 PSI entering the home at full draw.

Example: 

At 1 mile long, you will lose 6.6 PSI at 30 GPM with 3" pipe
With 2" pipe you will lose 47.7 PSI at 30 GPM.

I would go with 3"


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## 3 Ts Plumbing (Jan 25, 2011)

protechplumbing said:


> You need to know the static pressure of the line you are hooking onto first of all. Then you need to figure how many GPM the house will draw at maximum usage.
> 
> Plug your numbers into the hazen-williams equation. You want to end up with about 40 PSI entering the home at full draw.
> 
> ...


 thanks for the info!! but i am going to pass on giving a size and told them to have an engineer size it for them. $25,000 to put the line in and this is my main stable builder. So i dont get paid for my recommendation so is not worth the risk of being wrong.:clap:


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## Well? (Mar 9, 2011)

I probably wouldn't be responding, but you're in Michigan and there aren't too many areas in Michigan where you cannot get a good production well. and those areas tend to be well known in the drilling community.

For the cost of running that water line, you can drill a lot of dry holes. I'm a bit unclear as to whether the mile run is on the customer's property or the township's land. If the latter, the main will be run by them and to their standards, and be very expensive. If the mile run is on customer land then I'm back to questioning why you cannot get a well; rarely do we have a mile of land to find water on!

First thing you want to do is either get the drilling contractor to go on Wellogic, which is the DNR-E well log program from the state of Michigan, and find out what depth and what capacity the area's existing wells are at. If your driller does not have access to Wellogic he's either old, but probably still competent, or one of those low-cost specialists who run at the first sign of difficulty. I'll just add that selecting a driller on cost alone is a dubious business because you'll have no idea if he's drilled a good well and may not find out until a few years down the road. I've seen more than one well that's existed on nothing much more than casing volume for 5-10 years and it's painful to inform the customer that it was never a good well from the start. If you cannot gain access to Wellogic, call the county health department and request the well logs for houses in the area. It'll go faster if you provide them with neighboring addresses of the houses with four or five inch wells, which you'll be able to see from a drive by. Either source will give you a good idea of where other drillers have found water.

Next, if you're by a lake, river, or stream, you want to drill as far away from it as you can practicably get. That body of water is there for a reason and the reason is generally that there is a very good layer of clay which keeps it there. Clay is not noted for flowing water very well.

Ideally, you want a driller experienced in your area. But, more and more, there are houses being built in areas that no one, including those not within their right minds, thought previously of building. They don't keep records on people who previously decided to build there, but abandoned the idea when they couldn't get a well. Modern day practice is to build a $3 million house and then try to get a well. There is no substitute for experience in an area, no matter what method of drilling is used.

I'm not going to get into the benefits of cable-tool well drilling versus rotary well drilling, other than to deal with other issues. A good driller on either type machine should be able to get you a well.

That being said, cable-tooling is a better option if you're in a spotty area where it is tough to find water. Cable-toolers are less likely to drill through and beyond an acceptable vein of water. Rotary drillers are often faster and they cover a wider geographic service area so as to support that big expensive machine. Sometimes that equates with lack of knowledge of certain areas. I'm not doing anyone a disservice by saying that there are a lot more sub-par rotary drillers out there than cable-toolers. Because they can drill deep and fast, and the drilling in Michigan is usually pretty good, they just head deep and assume they'll get into a good vein. They can drill right through a nice six foot vein (more than adequate for your needs) at 60 feet on their way down to 225 feet. A good driller won't, but there are a lot of kids out on those machines who just get something fixed in their head instead of feeling their way down at a more modest pace with an open mind as to where they're going. On the other hand, if where you're going is 250', your cable-tooler may be there for quite a while getting there. If the area is nothing but a big rock pile the whole way down, you' do better to have a rotary driller do the well rather than watching a cable-tooler spend days and weeks bending pipe trying to drive through it. Of course, your best reference for that is a cable-tooler who has lost his butt drilling in the area before. If he says it's rotary country, take his word for it.

Another proclivity of rotary drillers is an unwillingness to give up on a hole. While, unlike the cable-tooler, the rotary driller does not have to set pipe to drill, they are often reluctant to go through the whole process of breaking the rig down and moving to another area of the property. For example, if you're next to a river where there are no wells over 50 feet deep and your driller finds nothing at that depth, it's best to call it a dry hole and relocate. There's nothing to be said for a rotary driller who just keeps on going, drills through 150' of clay, another 150' of impermeable shale, and then goes into salt water. Or worse, gets to 200' and into a vein shot through with clay and makes a poor well that will exist largely on casing volume. Pay the man for a dry hole and then move to the other side of the property and try there. Again, a good rotary or cable-tooler alike will do this any way.

Okay, you've drilled two dry holes and you're starting to think silly things, like running "communist water" in from a mile away. What to do otherwise? Spend the best $100 you'll ever spend and hire a water witch. I can't do it, and I don't care if you're a hydro-geologist, it works. The H-G's usually say it's nothing but myth, but none of them will put up any money against the witch and pay for the drilling to prove it. They don't advertise, ask a driller, or consult your gang at the local coffee shop or hardware store. You'll recognize your witch when he pulls up in a '78 Dodge, which will correspond with his age, and he'll be wearing a wife-beater T-shirt with the remains of his last two meals on it. He probably needed a shave, a week ago, and invariably has the remains of an unlit Swisher Sweet hanging from a couple of teeth. Those are his professional credentials. Have him witch the whole property. If you have him check only the area you want the well, you may pass up a superior, and shallower, location elsewhere. Shallower is generally better than deeper, assuming adequate static water table within the well, as the deeper you go the more minerals you're going to get in your well water.

Most of the better drillers in Michigan are members of the Michigan Ground Water Association, MGWA, and you can contact them to find a driller in your area.

Hope this helps you or anyone else with drilling "issues". Good luck!


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## greg24k (May 19, 2007)

They will have to run a water main, which should be at least 8-12", from there they can tap a water service to the house. The water department or public works department will aprove the size.


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## Smatt (Feb 22, 2011)

I have run a 2" water line to a house that was 550 ft.off the road with city water. There average pressure is 55 psi. The house was o two story 5 1/2 bath. 
A2" line that will run a mile sounds grossly undersized. 
Pay the engineer. 


Do not be someones fall guy!!!!!


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## PapaLima (Nov 22, 2009)

*'Well'*

Well, 
Thanks for taking the time to write that very informative post. I was schooled by a water witch back in the early 60's. I was just a boy but was fascinated by it.


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