I know this may be a little off topic but i’ll toss it out anyway. I’m adding a river fed irrigation system to a house. The river right now is at its lowest (about 18″ deep) and i need to affix a pipe to the river bottom. It will only go about 10′ off the shore. The bottom of the river is large river rocks so the only way i can think of doing this is drilling holes into the rock and cementing some threaded rod. Then attaching the pipe to the threaded rod. The issues are naturally drilling through water, power’s 1000′ away and finding epoxy that will work underwater.
Any suggestions?
Replies
You could always drill into the largest rock you and your four closest friends can carry into the river, epoxy the rod in place, then place it in the river, then attach the pipe.
No?
Why does it need to be "attached".
Pour a concrete block maybe 12x12x12 and stick a loop of rebar it in.
Drop it in the river and attach the pipe to the rebar.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
:)...that woudl be a pretty small rock
12x12x12....cause in the winter this river can go from 18" deep to 5' deep and lots of current and debris so i think 1 cu. ft of concrete would take off down teh river takign my pipe w/it. BTW the pumps going to be sitting up on the bank.
Those hippy self reliance magizines like Home Power and Mother Earth News will have stories and ads about collecting water from a stream for hydro or other purposes. Study their intake systems. They're nicely designed to keep out crud and creatures from blowing up your pump and minimizing cleaning.
cause in the winter this river can go from 18" deep to 5' deep and lots of current and debris so i think 1 cu. ft of concrete would take off down teh river takign my pipe w/it. BTW the pumps going to be sitting up on the bank.
You're wasting your time. It sounds like that river is going to have a lot of bed load come winter. What ever you attach now will be covered with silt, mud, cobbles,or rocks next spring.
How about drilling holes in the rocks to attach pipe clamping hardware? No epoxy or concrete required.
You could use a generator and a hammerdrill with a long masonry bit or a bit extension, to keep the drill above water. Keep the cord out of the water and wear rubber boots, gloves too.
Edited 7/8/2008 2:26 pm by Hudson Valley Carpenter
good point about using other attachment methods besides epoxy and threaded rod...tough parts still getting those holes drilled.
Also...haven't looked at a mother earth mag in a long long time but i'll see if i can pick up some good ideas from 'em.
Friend of mine is a commercial diver and does a lot of attachments to rock underwater....like securing steel armor over the Trans-Pacific fiber optic lines to protect them from drag net fouls from the trawlers.
Depths to over 100 ft.
He uses hydraulic borers and a specially formulated underwater epoxy.
Now, this is probably beyond most folks pay-grade, but you might check with one of the local dive shops and see if they do any of what you're doing on a small scale. It's pretty common out here, not just in saltwater, but attaching a variety of things to river bottoms in rock, like marker buoys and navigation markers.
Even the highway dept. is equipped for it here (and elsewhere I presume) for attaching barrier structures around bridge columns.
When they hold drag boat races on the local lakes, they anchor their buoys temporarily with concrete anchors equipped with eyebolts, placed by divers.
You could also drill the rock with a battery operated hammer drill with a long bit (may have to have extensions welted on a bit by a fabricating machine shop.
that's an approach i'd not considered and i may give a local dive shop a call and see if they have any good leads.
Sea-goin-poxy - seems like that's the name of it.
Two part clay like stuff you knead together, sticks and hardens in saltwater.
Marine supply has it.
Joe H
Edited 7/8/2008 6:46 pm by JoeH
thinkingif the river is so strong and carry debris in winter/spring. why not pull the house in the fall, and reinsert after the river calms down?
bobl Volo, non valeo
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You gonna play that thing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Ln-SpJsy0
That should all be in bold Caps.
If the river bottom is not solid rock...
Why not drive some 1" to 1-1/2" pipe into the river bottom ?
Get about 15 feet of it into the ground, and it should stay put.
Drill through it and bolt your anchor to it, just before you get it driven as far as you are going to go. (While the anchor point is still above water.)
Then continue driving, until your anchor is near the bottom. Then cut the pipe off, a few inches above your anchor.
All easily done with hand tools. No power needed. Use a battery powered drill to drill the hole and you don't have to worry about shock.
Use an ordinary "slide-hammer" type fence post driver, to drive the pipe into the ground.
I could have it all done in half an hour. And I take forever to do the simplest job...
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Luka:
what you suggest may be possible as i've seen another install downriver where the guy drove "superstrap" (i think that's what it was called) into the ground. he has deeper water than i -- it's like 5' deep where he's at -- so i was purposely looking for a nice rock base since i'm going to need to be near the bottom anyway. Plus i figured if i stayed low i'd have a better change *not* to get hit by floating debrie (sp?).
I've never seen/used a post setting device like you mention though i've often wondered how folks drove smaller items into the ground. it's pretty rocky out there so one thing that's liable to happen if i go down this route is i'll hit rock 5" underground and hunt for another spot...but it might be worth a shot.
The driver is essentially just a larger pipe with handles welded to the sides, and a cap welded on top.Usually, some sort of weight is trapped inside, as well.You can get one at just about any farm/feed supply store. I got mine for 19 dollars.Here is an example of one...http://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=446&cat_id=47You drop the driver over the top of the pipe you want to drive. Then slide it up and let it drop, to drive the pipe.It does go pretty quickly. And drives pretty good, even through tough situations.Best of all, when you are finished, you have a tool that you can keep and use again, as often as you wish, for probably less than what that special epoxy was going to cost you.;o)
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make a trench in the rock...
lay the pipe...
fill in the trench with the rock...
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My firsst question..............why?
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I can't see your project clearly........ so I'm making a few assumptions.
I assume you want to be low key, low impact and low cost.
I would stay away from any mechanical attachments U/W. Not that it's hard to do... just impractical.
Setting a deadman anchor would be the easiest if you have something of bulk and a way to set it. Back hoe, tractor etc.... The pump has to be placed. How are you doing that?
The deadman would have to be substantial enough not to be moved by the current. 300lbs on the small side, depending on the size of your intake. An old engine block maybe?
Like you questioned earlier... Everything is lighter in the water (aprox. 62lbs/ft³) Steel @ 490lbs/ft³ is not going to matter much, but concrete @ 144lbs/ft³ is a big difference.
Other ways to stabilize your intake... a cable stay or guy wire anchored on the bank up stream. 45° min. angle.
A pile, pipe or rod driven into the river bottom. Using a 'Yankee Driver' as Luka described. Jetting or just wedging between boulders. Unsure of the size of your material.
Doesn't sound practical to your application, but I've driven augers into sand or mud bottoms for anchor attachment.
I have also vibrated/impacted anchors that resemble toggle bolts into gravel/ washed stone river bottoms for anchors.
Both the augers and the toggle anchors are quite small. 6" dia. about 4'-6' long. They look like shed anchors.
If you want to spend some money.... this is what we use. http://www.submar.com/9%20Construction.htm
An old engine block maybe?
The Department of Ecology would love that
I am not convinced that any system is worthwhile. The OP has already stated that the water is 3 1/2 feet higher in winter, and debri laden. That means that the bed of the river is going to have a large bed load of mobile silt, sand or rocks. Are these going to destroy any system meant to be permament? Will the pipe be buried and/or plugged? Are geomorphic and hydrologic considerations are being taken into account. How do neighboring systems function? Is the bed load a non-factor?
Edited 7/9/2008 10:15 am ET by McMark
I'm do work on two small water systems serving a couple of hundred people each. One has a gravel filter bed below the stream that serves as an intake. The other has a weighted pipe that is also attached by cables to points on the bank.
Both experience problems when our winter rains come. Even though the intake bed is somewhat protected by a weir, it gets clogged by silt and has to be washed down frequently. The weighted pipe is no match for the surge in current and is often displaced. And these are just in streams.
I think you are dead on. Any intake that would survive year round would involve substantial engineering. Probably better to drop a pipe in during the summer and plan on taking it out when things get nasty.
OK...maybe for now i'll plan on installing it in such a way that i can remove it in the fall. One way i could do this (keep in mind i've got to go about 15' into this river to get to a decent depth) is to either just cover the pipe w/some of the large river rocks and keep it really close to the river bottom. Another was would be to affix it to some of these rocks in a way that i can remove it -- i.e. they'd be easy to haul out of the river, drill some holes and epoxy some threaded rod into them <-- the trick though is what's the best way to attach the pipe to the threaded rod...if i somehow bolt it on, even if i use stainless, i imagine it'll corrode and be hard to remove.
tywraps?
bobl Volo, non valeo
Baloney detecter WFR
"But when you're a kibbutzer and have no responsibility to decide the facts and apply the law, you can reach any conclusion you want because it doesn't matter." SHG
Drive your pipe.At the anchor point, put a pulley, or a shakle.Run stainless cable through that.Now you can use the cable to pull your feedpipe out to the anchor point. And pull the feedpipe back in, whenever you want.
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1 bag of quickrete
1 band or clevis pipehanger
1 threaded rod
1 big washer
3 nuts
thread the hanger over the rod and put a nut on it.
shove the rod through the most narrow dimension of the bag of quickrete
capture the washer between two nuts on the backside of the rod
drop it in the water
I have no advice other than to mention that hydraulic cement will cure under water.
I've only read a few of the replies so forgive me if I am redundant.
Hydraulic cement dries under water.
Do NOT attach to ANY rocks in the river as they will ALL move under heavy current. How do you think they got there in the first place?
Bore to the river bed and brace that way if need be.. however, any moving debris can damage your installation.
How big a river are we talking about? what does the pipe actually do?
Can you dig or create a "bay" or "basin" alongside the river to provide your needed water?
I refuse to accept that there are limitations to what we can accomplish. Pete Draganic
"so forgive me if I am redundant."
wow.
what to do ... what to do.
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
I'm adding a river fed irrigation system to a house ... 18" deep
Ok, that's not super deep as rivers go. My questions are how big is the pump and what is its head requirement?
See, this is a different answer if you need a 6" intake line versus a 2' one. Same deal if you need two foot of head height to pump from, too.
When a person uses a "tank" (earth berm catchment along a watershed), you drive a pipe into the tank bed. Into that pipe goes the suction line. If the distance is too far to cantilever over, a bit of unistrut pipe-clamped on generally will suffice. The collector pipe draw water from the top, generally clearer, and lets the suction pipe be deep enough to draw without being buried in silt.
Given the water range and conditions, I'd be very inclined to "low tech" the suction line. Like, just use a flexible hose chunked out in the stream. River floods and leaves the hose up o nthe bank, well, haul it back, and toss it back out again. Stout bit of unistrut just pounded in with a fence driver could hold a 'clothesline' loop to help haul the hose out, if needed, come to cases.
the pump is a multistage 2hp that can put out 25 gpm at around 220 head. the pump is about 8' or so above the bottom of the river and the pipe from the pump to the river (all the way to the foot valve) is about 15'. Everything is 2' pipe.
Take one of those old cars in your yard, drain the fluids, strip the interior,pop out the glass and roll it in the river.
Those suckers are too valuable for scrap value, now, to waste them like that !
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now if i did that where would i move my garden to?
You leave the garden in it. That way you don't have to water it as often.
Running your pipe straight out into the stream gives the flowing water a lot of resistance. Would it be possible to let your pipe enter the water at an shallow angle so the water would find less resistance to work against?
yes...i'm going to do that...probably about 45 degrees.
Get a steel (best) or plastic pipe that is larger in diameter than the suction pipe and 20' long. Plan to set it into the river angled diagonally downstream from the pump location. Drill a series of holes into it as far up the length of the pipe as the water level will be.
Now weight the end of the pipe and slide it off the bank and into the river with the bank end anchored . Slide your suction pipe down the inside of the larger pipe , this gives you the protection from larger debris during the summer months and solves the problem of how to affix the bottom end.
Farmers here have "ways" set up high on the bank to slide the pipe up and down from the river , just a couple of stanchions with a plank laid across them. Every spring they use the same system to slide the big pipe down and in the fall use a tractor to pull it back up again.
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Edited 7/11/2008 10:19 am by dovetail97128
dovetail...what keeps the current from just pushing that 20' pipe end such that it bends it around to be parallel w/the bank? It's just weighted down on the end? Also there has to be a foot valve (and i also have a basket/filter) at the end of the inner pipe so the outer pipe would need to be pretty large in this case.
This is cool..reading all these ideers.
When I had scads of chickens in NC, right next to a pretty strong creek, I just laid 2" PVC facing UP stream and funneled it into a trough and out the other side back to the stream..the chick-chicks always had fresh running water..I did ahve the benefit of grade and only a few times did it flood enough to wipe out the feeder pipe.
I switched to steel pipe and made a pelton wheel for hydro, but moved away before I got it dialed in.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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You gonna play that thing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Ln-SpJsy0
Why not just run some big "o" into the river, run your pipe with a foot valve, burry it with rock. keep the "o" in line with the current and you shoudlnt have any problems with debris etc.
ok...tell me what an "o" is?
"Big O" Its a corrugated (spiral) plastic pvc pipe (6ish" dia), commonly used in cottages for water systems into the lake (I use this at my place). run it into the river in the opposite direction of water flow. Run your feed line with foot valve into the "o", bury the "o" with rock.
anchor the "o", and the pump to the shoreline, sould be good to go
edit "o" should go with the flow of the river
Edited 7/11/2008 11:25 am ET by RRav