Due to a water failure this winter and a bit of nagging from my sister in-law, I have decided to finally hook up our water system to the cabin.
If you are not aware of how we receive water at the cabin please check out a DIY article I wrote called
Bringing Water to the Cabin.
In short, my neighbor found an old hand dug well which was fed by a spring located about 300 yards uphill of the cabin. I ran ¾” irrigation pipe (Poly pipe) from the well to an outside faucet close to the cabin. This allowed syphon and gravity to give us 2-4 gallons per minute at the faucet depending on time of year.
This arrangement allows us to fill 5 gallon buckets for flushing the toilet and filling up 5 gallon jugs for cooking, cleaning and drinking, 12 months out of the year.
In January while at the cabin the “Y” valve on the faucet failed which caused the pipe to freeze up to the first barb connection; about 300 feet up hill from the cabin. At that connection the pressure coming down the hill from the well caused the pipe to work its way off of the barb connector and was merrily producing about 4 GPM.
With the daily temperature not exceeding the teens there was no way to defrost the 300 feet of pipe from that point to the faucet next to the cabin. This resulted in my (or my brother) having to go uphill to retrieve water for the cabin versus walking about 50 feet as we had done since July 2011. Now that was 300 feet up hill in 24 plus inches of snow and then back down the same path. As you can imagine it got old pretty fast.
So with encouragement (Nagging) from my sister in-law and several falls while lugging a 5 gallon bucket in both hands down the hill; I realized it was time to upgrade.
Over the past twelve months or so I have been picking the brains of friends, family and forum members like ThatGuy, on how to proceed. With all of the free advice I had received I have decided to go with the following plan (see attached schematic). I would love to hear what you folks think.
Phase I:
Once spring has sprung and the iced up 300 feet of pipe has thawed I will re-hook-up the pipe to get the existing faucet working next to the cabin.
I am going to borrow the neighbor’s back-hoe and dig a 2 foot trench from the current faucet to the side of the cabin’s cellar. The trench will not be 4 feet deep to keep it below the frost line in case I have to dig it up again in the future. It shouldn’t freeze as water will be passing through it 24/7, 365 days a year.
Once the trench is dug, I will lay 2” PVC conduit in the trench and feed ¾” irrigation pipe (poly) through the PVC from one side of the splitter at the existing faucet to a 55 gallon food grade barrel (drum). The 2” PVC conduit will be there to just protect the irrigation pipe once the trench is filled back in. The irrigation pipe will be directed from the trench, up the side of the barrel ending in the top of the barrel. Once the water is turned on this will cause a continuous flow and ripple of water coming into the barrel which should inhibit freezing in the winter.
Located in the barrel about 3-4 inches below the intake flow of water will be a gate valve for run off. Attached to this gate valve will be an inexpensive garden hose. This hose will take the run off out of the barrel to a water run-off creek bed about 50 feet away. This too will help the water in the barrel from freezing.
Underneath this gate valve I will install another gate valve which will be closed except when we clean the barrel out twice a year.
I will also install a thru hull fitting at the bottom of the drum for the pick-up of the cabins fresh water system. To that I will hook up metal water pipe which will go through the cellar wall and eventually to the system.
Wrapped around this metal pipe will be freeze tape which should help that part of the system to not freeze in the winter. The tape will be wrapped around the pipe and pass through the hole in the cellar wall to an electrical outlet. If the electric does go out, the kitchen faucet will be turned on so a thin stream of water comes out and keeps the water moving.
The barrel will sit on cinder blocks which will sit on gravel. The barrel will be elevated for ease of draining prior to cleaning. The barrel will be painted black in hopes of absorbing some solar heat in the winter too.
I have decided to go with PEX fitting’s and pipe for the cabin. PEX fitting’s and pipe have been used in houses for about 30 years now. Before that and to present they were used in many boats fresh water systems. So we feel that the system is sound.
The well water will be directed to a 12 volt pump capable of delivering 5 GPM at up to 60 PSI. We have decided to go with a 12 volt versus 120 volt pump so we will have water when the electric goes out. This is common up at the cabin.
A future plan is to move our solar system from the bunkhouse to the basement of the cabin and reinstall the solar panels to the south side of the cabin. In the meantime, the 12 volt deep cycle battery will be charged using a 12 volt marine battery charger. Yes the battery charger will be powered by a 120 volt outlet; however if the electric does go out we can switch out the battery powering the pump with one from the existing solar system once or twice a week.
The PEX system works off of a manifold – One for cold and one for hot water. Phase I involves setting up the above water delivery system and cold water to the kitchen sink and two toilets. The estimated cost will be ~$1,200-. Estimated time from beginning to end will be about 50 man hours.
At first glance this sounds pricy but if we were to pay a plumber to do this job, labor would be around $3,750-. So parts plus labor we would be looking at ~$5,000- and we would only have cold water.
Phase II:Phase II will consist of adding a hot water heater, hot water manifold and appropriate PEX pipe. The challenge with this phase is not the plumbing, as the brunt of the work is done, but money.
We will have to decide whether to buy a basic propane hot water heater/tank ($300-) or go with a propane instant water heater ($1,200-). You will recoup the extra cost for the instant water heater within about 5 years in propane usage saving’s.
Then the cost of the bathroom vanities, sinks and faucets. Might as well lay tile at this point so about $400- per bathroom plus vanities, sinks and faucets.
The estimated cost for Phase II is between $2,000- to $3,000- depending how many bathrooms we will finish and water heater we use.
Phase III:Phase III consist of whatever we do not accomplish in phase II. Again the only thing holding us back is money.
So there you go…I am open to any suggestions and will be happy to answer any questions.
