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underground water shutoff?

Trevor_Lambert | Posted in General Questions on

This is going to be an odd one.

I need to get a water line into my new workshop. We are on a rural property with a well.

Option 1 is to dig a trench back to the well (around 120 feet long, 4 feet deep) and have another submersible pump installed. I’m not a fan of this option due to high cost and amount of labour. The other downside of adding a pump is that it increases the risk of running the well dry. It only has a refill rate of about 1.5GPH

Option 2 is to dig a trench from the house to the workshop. I ruled this out due to the amount of destruction of landscaping around the house it requires, and the amount of work.

Option 3 is to tap into a 3/4″ underground poly pipe that leads to a garden spigot. This cuts the trench length in half, and saves having to hire a contractor to do the well pump install. The complication with this is that the garden spigot has to be shut off seasonally. This is currently done by means of a valve inside the house. Obviously, I don’t want to shut off the water to the workshop seasonally. What I was thinking of doing is moving the valve to the garden, underground inside an insulated box. There’d be an insulated hatch that would allow access to the valve. Is this a feasible idea?

edited to add:
A fourth option would be to splice the garden pipe to the workshop, then have a shutoff valve inside the workshop and return another pipe to connect to the pipe going to the garden. I feel like I had this idea before but forgot it, because this is a problem I’d previously thought I’d solved until I started thinking about it again. This is probably the simplest option.

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Replies

  1. freyr_design | | #1

    you could just put a non freeze hydrant in your garden. or use a water meter shut off and use a key to turn on and off, then just bury at frost depth and use cristy extension to get depth (might still want a little lid insulation)

    1. Trevor_Lambert | | #5

      This is probably what I should have done from the start. Now it would require digging a 5 foot deep hole by hand. I will keep this as a last resort.

      1. freyr_design | | #6

        Yes, the curb stop valve ( didn’t know that was its name) makes more sense. I also didn’t know about the extension which is very convenient (don’t work in particularly cold climate). I imagine the earth will temper the cold transfer through steel. You can order online or any supply store in your area should sell it. You probably could do just a pvc pipe as they make those keys fairly long, but I think you’d be better off using the purpose built extension.

        1. Trevor_Lambert | | #7

          I talked it over with the ol' ball and chain, and she really likes the idea of having water in the garden year round. So I guess she better get started digging that hole.

      2. Expert Member
        DCcontrarian | | #10

        Don't you have to dig a hole anyway for the tee?

        1. Trevor_Lambert | | #11

          The garden spigot is not in the same location as where the tee needs to go.

  2. Expert Member
    DCcontrarian | | #2

    I've done this with a yard hydrant buried below the frost line.

  3. MartinHolladay | | #3

    Trevor,
    The type of valve you are looking for is called a curb-stop valve. I've installed several of them. These buried valves include a steel riser pipe with a flat steel cap. To operate the valve, you remove the flat steel cap and turn a vertical rod with a steel key.

    Assuming that the water supply pipe and buried valve are located below frost level, there shouldn't be any freezing problems with this type of valve.

    1. Trevor_Lambert | | #4

      Two silly questions:

      If the riser pipe is made of steel, wouldn't that effectively deliver below-freezing temperatures pretty effectively down to the valve? Can I substitute a plastic pipe?

      What kind of store supplies the valve and key? If it's not practical for me to get, is using a standard 1/4 turn valve and a home-made key a reasonable solution?

      1. Expert Member
        MALCOLM TAYLOR | | #8

        Trevor,

        Fire Hydrants operate on a version of a curb-stop valve, all made of steel. But yes you could certainly make your own DIY version with less thermally conductive materials.

      2. MartinHolladay | | #9

        Trevor,
        I used to work at a plumbing-supply outlet, and we sold curb-stop valves.

        My buried curb stops have never frozen, but you can always include a horizontal 2-inch-thick layer of XPS or dense EPS directly above your water pipe, in the vicinity of the valve (obviously, with a keyhole-shaped hole in the middle for the steel riser) if you want. The rigid foam will help retain ground heat, lowering the chance of freezing.

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