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The requirements in the country for water supply are not lower than in city apartments, but higher: it is necessary to provide supply not only to taps and household appliances, but also for irrigation. Therefore, the performance of the pump must be high, and the debit of the well or well must be good and stable. One more problem has to be solved: electricity is often cut off in rural areas, therefore it is desirable to have a supply of water or a backup method of its “extraction”. For the owners of wells, everything is not difficult: you can get it with a bucket for urgent needs, but you simply won’t get it from a well. We have to come up with backup schemes.
Organization of water supply in the country
It is possible to organize the supply of water in the country only using a pump, but it can be supplied in two ways: from a storage tank or from a hydraulic accumulator.
When using the scheme with a storage tank, you have a supply of water equal to the volume of the tank, but the pressure in the system is low. It is created by a height difference: the tank is installed at a height – in the attic of the cottage or the roof of the outbuilding. The main condition is that its bottom should be above any point of water intake. Then there will be water in the taps.
The second method – with a hydraulic accumulator is more convenient in that pressure is created and automatically maintained in the system. If the accumulator is supplemented with a pump and automation (pressure switch), the entire assembly is called a pumping station. The trick here lies in the accumulator. This is a cylindrical container, divided into two parts by an elastic membrane. Gas is pumped into one part under low pressure, water is supplied to the second by a pump. As it enters, the water compresses the gas more and more, due to which pressure is created in the system (about 2 atm).
When the tap opens (household appliances turn on or watering starts), water is supplied from the accumulator. It gradually reduces the pressure. Its value is controlled by special relays. As soon as the lower threshold is reached, the pump turns on, restoring its set value. The upper threshold is controlled by a second sensor, which the pump turns off.
Such a system of country water supply can be implemented both in winter and in summer. The difference is where to install the equipment and how deep to bury the pipes.
Which pipes to choose for plumbing in the country
A decade and a half ago, there were no questions: there was no alternative to steel pipes. Today, metal is almost never used for country water supply: it is expensive, welding is needed for installation, and modern pipes rust quickly. There is a much more practical alternative – plastic pipes. They are the best solution for country water supply: they definitely do not rust, some are also not afraid of frost. But plastic is different, as are products made from it.
HDPE pipes
Most often, for water supply in the country, HDPE pipes are used – low-pressure polyethylene. They are attractive in that they can be assembled without any additional devices. The fittings for assembling the HDPE plumbing are threaded and simply twisted by hand.
Why are HDPE polyethylene pipes so good that they almost replaced metal ones? In addition to convenient installation, there are a number of other advantages:
- If the operating rules are observed, the service life is 50 years. This figure has not yet been verified, but it is impressive.
- They do not rot, do not rust, are resistant to chemical environments.
- Can be operated at temperatures down to -60°C.
- When water freezes in them, they do not burst – they stretch, then after thawing they take on their previous dimensions.
- Their inner surface is perfectly smooth. For a water supply system, this is important for two reasons: there is less pressure loss during transportation and deposits do not accumulate on the walls, they are simply blown away by the flow.
- With their help, making plumbing in the country with your own hands is very simple, just like making changes later.
- HDPE pipes can be used for summer and winter plumbing.
- Convenient assembly methods: welding or compression (threaded) fittings.
There are disadvantages, but they are few:
- they do not tolerate heat well (except for pipes made of cross-linked polyethylene), therefore they are used only for transporting cold media;
- when compared with metal, they have lower strength – you can’t walk on them.
HDPE pipes can be welded with a special apparatus, or they can be connected using compression fittings. For country water supply, pieces of pipe, tees, adapters are connected using threaded connections. Although such a connection seems unreliable, it can withstand much more than 2-4 atm, which you can create to the maximum. See the video for the results of testing connections on threaded fittings. At the same time, see their design and installation principle.
HDPE pipes with blue lines are suitable for plumbing. They are designed for cold water. If the lines are yellow, they cannot be used to supply water – they are intended for gas. They contain special additives that make water unusable.
There are several gradations for working pressure:
- L – light, withstand up to 2,5 atm;
- SL – medium-light – up to 4 atm;
- C – medium – up to 8 atm;
- T – heavy from 10 and above.
For the installation of an external (street) water supply in the country, HDPE pipes of class C and SL are used, with diameters of 32 mm, 40 mm and 50 mm. When choosing, you still need to decide on the density.
There are three more grades of polyethylene: PE 63, 80, 100. These numbers indicate the density. The denser the material, the stronger the products, but the higher the price. For example, one running meter of 32 mm PE 80 pipe costs from $4 (or more, depending on the wall thickness). The same diameter, but from PE 100 already from $ 7 per linear meter.
Do I need high density when arranging a water pipe on a bowl? I guess it’s yes. Due to the higher density, the walls of the pipes are made thinner, which reduces their weight. If the water in the country is taken from a well or a well, weight can be an important factor – there will be less problems with fixing the pipe lowered down.
PVC pipes
For plumbing in the country, PVC pipes are also used – polyvinyl chloride. They are cheaper than HDPE, they are connected by cold welding – with glue. The seam turns out to be reliable – it withstands pressure up to 12-16 atm, the service life is declared the same: 50 years.
Characteristics are slightly worse than low-density polyethylene:
- Temperature range of use from -15°C to +45°C.
- Does not like freezing – elasticity decreases, the material becomes more brittle.
- Medium sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation.
The remaining advantages of plastic pipes are inherent in PVC in full:
- Ease of installation, the possibility of bending.
- Smoothness of the inner surface.
- Resistance to oxidation (do not rust) and chemical environments.
- Low flammability.
The disadvantages of a country PVC plastic water supply system are as follows:
- Upper temperature limit +45°C, short-term possible up to +65°C.
- It is difficult to dispose of, because during decomposition it releases volatile chlorides that are harmful to health and the environment.
- When scratches appear on the surface of the pipe, its strength is significantly reduced. Therefore, it is undesirable to use PVC pipes for open laying of water pipes in the country. When laying underground, protective shells or laying in the sewer are obligatory.
Since scratches and cracks greatly reduce reliability, threaded connections are not possible. When docking with metal pipes or equipment inlets, this is a big problem. And if piping around the site is a simple matter, then equipment piping is a serious task. This disadvantage limits the use of this material for outdoor plumbing, because PVC is more often used for internal wiring, where the risks of scratching are minimal. More often they are used for laying sewers.
How to connect PVC pipes, see the video. The connection is really reliable. This conclusion is based on personal experience: a cold water comb was assembled in the apartment. It stood for about 10 years without any problems, until I had to redo all the wiring due to redevelopment.
Polypropylene (PPR)
Another material that can be used for do-it-yourself plumbing in the country is polypropylene pipes. They also belong to the category of plastics. There are for cold (with blue stripes) and hot water supply, as well as for heating (with red stripes). They are connected by soldering and couplings – there are special soldering irons, with the help of which the plastic is heated on two parts, then they are connected. After a couple of minutes, the connection becomes monolithic. It is not even necessary to buy a soldering iron (it costs about 2-5 thousand rubles) – it is rented in the same stores that sell pipes and fittings for polypropylene water pipes.
The disadvantage of polypropylene pipes is essentially one – expensive fittings. For example, a linear meter of a pipe for cold water supply 32 mm in diameter (wall thickness 3 mm) costs about $ 2, a coupling for connecting two segments of the same diameter is $ 1,2. Since the PPR pipe does not bend, everything is assembled using couplings, corners, etc. As a result, the water supply will not be very cheap, but reliable. After all, not only domestic water pipes are assembled from this material, but also industrial routes.
You can read about drip irrigation systems and how to make them yourself in this article.
How to assemble plumbing
When collecting water supply in the country with your own hands, you need to decide in which parts of the site you need wiring. The fact that water should be supplied to the house is self-evident. But in addition to distributing the water supply around the house, it is necessary to lay pipes for irrigation in key places of the site, put taps on them. If necessary, connect a hose to them and, shifting it from place to place or installing a sprinkler, water the nearby beds.
How to bring water into the house, read here, and how the plumbing should be done in the summer cottage with our own hands, we’ll talk further. It is best to draw the plan to scale. If you already have beds, you can easily determine where you need to deliver water. It is better to make several points of drawdown: long hoses are inconvenient and difficult to carry, and having the ability to connect several at the same time, you can handle watering faster.
When drawing up a diagram, do not forget about the need to install taps on the main line: at the cut after the outlet is still in the house, and then, on the site, before the first branch. It is desirable to install cranes further on the highway: in this way it will be possible to turn off the emergency section in case of problems.
Even if summer water supply will be equipped, you will need to drain the water from the pipes so that when it freezes, it does not break them. To do this, you need a drain valve at the lowest point. That’s when it will be possible to close the tap in the house, and drain all the water, protecting the water supply from damage in the winter. This is not necessary if the country water supply pipes are made of polyethylene pipes (HDPE).
After drawing the diagram, count the pipe footage, draw and consider what fittings are needed – tees, angles, taps, couplings, adapters, etc.
Then you need to decide on the mode of use. There are two options: summer and winter plumbing. They differ in the depth to which the pipes are buried. If you have an all-season dacha, then you will have to lay an insulated water supply in the dacha itself or bury it below the freezing depth. For wiring irrigation pipes in the country, it is more rational to use the summer version of the water supply. You will only need a winter one if you have a greenhouse equipped. Then the section of the water supply to the greenhouse will need to be equipped in a serious way: dig a good ditch and lay insulated pipes.
Summer plumbing in the country
Depending on which pipes you will use, they can be left at the top, or they can be laid in shallow ditches. Installing a country water supply underground will take more time, but it is more reliable.
Having decided whether you need trenches or not, and having dug them out, if you have chosen an underground option, the pipes are stretched and laid out over the site. So once again the correctness of the calculations is checked. Then you assemble the system. The final stage – testing – turn on the pump and check the quality of the joints.
Winter water supply differs from summer water supply in that the areas that will be operated in the cold season must be guaranteed to be protected from freezing. They can be laid in trenches below freezing depth and/or insulated and/or heated with heating cables.
You can read about the organization of automatic watering here.
Autonomous water supply in the country
Since electricity is often cut off in rural areas, and any pump can only work if there is electricity, it would be nice to have a reserve supply of water in case of a blackout. This can be a container installed in the attic or on a separate site. Water can be pumped into it with a submersible pump from a well, well, river. And the pumping station will “pull” water from this tank.
The water supply in the country from the tank is convenient in that rainwater can also be collected in it, but a good filter system is needed: first, coarse cleaning, then several fine ones. And be sure to install a filter and a check valve at the inlet of the suction pipeline from the pumping station. The filter is for insurance – the equipment is demanding on water quality, and the valve is so that when the pump is turned off, the water is not discharged back.
The presence of a tank in the water supply system of the cottage is also good for plants: in the summer, if it is installed on the street, the water will heat up. And it is known that plants watered with warm water grow more actively and bear fruit better.
If desired, you can organize drip irrigation – assemble a line from pipes, insert tees in the right places, to which hoses for drip irrigation are connected.
Here’s what it looks like schematically. Raise the tank to a height of at least 1 meter. You pump water into it from a well, a well, a river. Its level is controlled by a float mechanism (such as those found in drain tanks). From the bottom of the tank is the wiring for the beds. First, there is a solid water pipe, and a drip pipe leaves the tee – with holes.