How to make a mess

"SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media" (silentbutnotreallydeadly)
06/16/2020 at 22:02 • Filed to: So messed up

Use one of these...

...to draw lines everywhere like a real life version of MS Paint.

I have spent the morning trenching so I can run a new house water line between the house, the house rainwater tank and our header tanks on top of the hill (you can see the green plastic tank in the background if you zoom in).

The original line is being reco mm iss ioned as a non-potable garden water line to and from our new 110,000 litre which will be supplied by the farm dam.

Looking the other way from the first trench photo...

Add in another couple of runs, one from the header tanks to the farm water tanks and the other a line extension from the chook house to the new orchard and there’s about 300 metres of trench to finesse, poly pipe to lay, trench to refill and plumbing to swear at. Lovely...

DISCUSSION (11)

66P1800inpieces > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/16/2020 at 23:04

That thing is pretty serious. Wonder if I would pit it against Northeast US soil which has tons of field stones. What is the longest run you have and what diameter pipe? Is the water from the tank gravity feed, or transfer pump to a higher pressure pump? What happens if it doesn’t rain, do you also have a well or a utility connection?

I checked my town, residential water is billed every quarter at $35USD for the first 22712 liters used in that quarter and and $6 for each additional 3785 liters.

Aremmes > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/16/2020 at 23:26

That's a pretty clean-cut trench you've got there. The real mess comes when the operator failed to check for existing buried lines and cuts into phone or cable TV wiring, electrical wiring, or a water supply pipe.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > 66P1800inpieces
06/16/2020 at 23:31

Given that the run down the hill is over some very rocky ground filled with dinner plate sized chunks of sandstone...it should do just fine.

The current line runs from the hill right down to the dam and it’s probably 300 metres plus. This new line is only half that. All our pipe is 50 mm polypropylene. We gravity feed from the header tanks and they are topped up every few weeks by a pressure pump at the house with another one at the shed.

If it doesn’t rain....we either cart water (750 litres at a time) from a public spring about 10 km away or buy 15,000 litres of town water that is delivered by tanker for $350 per load.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Aremmes
06/16/2020 at 23:33

#beentheredonethat

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/17/2020 at 02:59

I envy your dam. I’ve only got 50,000 liters of storage, which is fine for the house but not enough f or garden irrigation and a few stock when we get a drought. I got bored AF of trailering 1000 liters at a time from the river this summer. We’re thinking seriously about investing in a bore be fore next summer.

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/17/2020 at 04:24

“fun”

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/17/2020 at 04:59

We thought of a bore too. However, there’s a real risk of a deep and dry hole round here which would be a waste of tens of thousands of dollars. The new big tank is a way of combating intermittent rainfall and a leaky dam. And for less than ten grand.

Our rainfall storage capacity runs to over 125,000 litres now so having another 100,000 for garden, orchard and firefighting water plus the dam itself (perhaps 500,000 litres? ) may mean I never have to cart water again... hopefully.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/17/2020 at 16:31

I’m pretty confident of hitting water with a shallow bore - there’s an underground stream marked on survey maps at the bottom of a gully 100 yards or so from my house, and the bush in that area stays muddy underfoot right through summer so it must be fed by a spring . The problem will be access - it’ll take a tracked drilling rig to get close to the gully , which probably won’t be cheap.

A dam’s also a workable alternative I think - that same gully could be easily dammed further up. But that’s not a cheap exercise either by the time you deal with engineering and planning permissions and fence the resulting pond - round here you’re not allowed to just bulldoze up a berm yourself and hope. Plus half full dams are ugly and it’d be alongside the driveway.

Or I could just put in a shitload more tankage - we get lots of rain here in winter, so filling 100 or 150,000 litres off the ho use and shed roof would be doable.

I need to get some people in over winter who know what they’re talking about and weigh up the options properly.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/17/2020 at 18:14

Tanks are my preferred option...mainly because they are the cheapest per kilolitre to both buy and operate.

Our new tank is just steel sections that hold up a woven plastic bag and then a steel roof...8 metres in diameter. Surely you'd be able to get something similar over there...

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media
06/17/2020 at 18:28

You can, b ut my land is *seriously* not flat apart f ro m the area immediately around the house . It’d take significa n t excava tion to create an 8 m diameter flat space anywhere useful: probably w ind up cheaper to put in another 4 25kl plastic ones. It’s certainly an option thou gh.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/17/2020 at 19:19

Yeah that’s a complication! Mind you...you can get a bag custom made to fit almost any appropriately engineered structure. Or even an insitu cast concrete tank. Either could be sized to fit a constrained site.

Four of the 25,000 litre plastic jobbies would probably set us back nearly twelve grand, once they were on site and level on the ground.