Drought and pushing water in a garden hose 700'..

I've got 250 spruces/trees I'm trying to save back behind my house. It's been so dry they are needing a drink and will for the rest of the summer propbably. Going to pull a 1 1/4" line or so back there, but for now it's 3/4" and 5/8" garden hose going 700' back to 150 feet of soaker hose. I let it run for a day and then move it. Been running for 2 weeks straight, and will be until I pull the line. Sure wish it would rain some more. I dig these in the fall/spring for some extra $$$. Ever think a garden hose would work for that far?

At an auction I picked up an electric pump that works with a garden hose. Something like that in the middle of the 700' would definitely help the flow.

If it's not uphill.

You know, somebody else posted about similar technology yesterday, and its probably a good idea. I have to figure that the best way for Oliver to lay this out, is all of the 3/4" first, and then the smaller 5/8". Somewhere in there, probably half way, or at the 5/8", the electric pump to act as a repeater to reenergize the water flow, either by sucking, pushing, or both. There is naturally going to be friction inside of the hose, becoming more evident at that length, and since hose is rubber and gives, the hose nearer the spiqot is going to contract and expand as the flexable rubber gives into pressure caused by both friction and size reduction, reducing the volume output.

But, Oliver, if you are going to get that 1 1/4" in, don't waste money on the pump, until you find out that a 1 1/4" pump as a repeater is what the doctor ordered on your pipe, after the pipe is in, and you see a need. Money aint easy these days with crops failing as bad as the economy in general. Don't forget a way to drain the pipe at the low points, unless buried, and then at the lowest point. Broken frozen shallow pipe, not what the doctor ordered for the pocketbook or self esteem.

Good luck.

Mark

I have a 1200 ft 1" pipeline that runs from a Spring gravity flow to my garden very little difference in flow at the spring and the garden.

That garden hose will flow in the neighborhood of 2 GPM no problem because the friction doesn't come into play until you get somewhat above that. But I know that for 250 trees you need a lot more.

We have a 3/4 water line buried 5 foot deep a little over 3000 feet long to water the cows I once had. There were 4 hydrants along the way.

The pump is set at 45 pounds pressure top end.

It would take about one hour to fill a 500 gallon tank out there.

There is a hill about half way that has about a 40 foot rise. The hydrant at the top of hill took about 90 minutes to fill 500 gallon.

That was with a sand point well 24ft. deep with a half HP pump.

700 feet should work fine.

You could set the pressure higher on the pump if it is running intermittently, its better for them to run steady. If the water table pumps down to the 24 foot level that is almost maximum lift for a shallow well pump, you might run out of water altogether!

Wow that"s far, didn"t know that would work that well. Is that black poly?

Yes black poly 3/4 line.

We added another 1300 feet for afew years when the pasture was a little farther back.

That one was on top of the ground. It was slightly down hill from the last hydrant. In the fall I would disconnect from the hydrant and just walk the line lifting it over my head to drain it.

Gary

thats a long way! around here by the time you paid the electric bill to run it all summer you probably would be money ahead to drill another well. I dont think ive ever seen so many trees die off in one summer around here. next door neighbor had several pines,they are all dead.

According to Texas Parks & Wildlife, in the 8 counties around Houston, they estimated over 60 million trees died due to the heat and drought last year.

We lost dozens around our farm, mostly oaks. Lost nearly half the large, old dogwoods in the front yard. Lost the two large red buds in the back yard.

Really sad.

The pressure loss is based on the actual ID of the hose. Pressure loss is typically stated as "head loss in feet" to better account for elevation changes. Using the stated nominal hose size the pressure loss is as follows:

Head Loss:

5/8" ID hose = 4.56 Ft/100Ft @ 2 GPM and 24.8 Ft/100 Ft @ 5 GPM
3/4" ID hose = 1.93 Ft/100Ft @ 2 GPM and 10.5 Ft/100 Ft @ 5 GPM
1 1/4" ID pipe = .862 Ft/100Ft @ 5 GPM and 3.12 Ft/100 Ft @ 10 GPM

The above data is the head loss due to friction between the water and the hose that the pump must overcome. Elevation changes must be accounted for by adding to (uphill) or subtracting from (downhill) the friction loss.

For example: Assume you want at least 2 GPM, have a 10 foot increase in elevation, 300 feet of 5/8" hose and 400 feet of 3/4" hose. The friction loss would be [3 x 4.56] + [4 x 1.93] + 10 = 31.4 Ft. To convert to Psi we divide by 2.31 resulting in a pressure loss of 13.6 Psi. If your pump output is greater than 13.6 Psi then the flow rate will increase until the friction loss +/- elvation change equals the pump output.

Reference = Cameron Hydraulic Data Handbook, 1970.