I’ve convinced my pal to get a backhoe in instead of farting around with hand-digging here and there and everywhere on a 50 y.o. galv line that developed a leak somewhere between her spring and her house 500′ downhill, or possibly between the house and the gardens/corrals another 500′ on.
I suggested poly pipe as a replacement, but she’s heard lore from the locals that the gophers will go down 4′ to snack on poly pipe, that PVC is the preferred pipe. I pointed out that the poly overflow pipe on the ground hadn’t been bothered by gophers. I worry PVC won’t be as tough as the Poly – esp if not bedded properly. Poly is less expensive, requires fewer fittings, is easier to install and less prone to freeze damage, i told her, but the guys at the hardware store have her thinking really hard about gophers………….
Have any of you ever heard that gophers will eat poly but not PVC? She’s in NE Washington state, near Colville. Code is 30″ deep, but she’ll go 4′.
Replies
Have 160 ft of pvc from well to own house in Seattle area put in in '74, 2 ft deep, no problems ever.
Neighbor has about 500 ft of 1" poly to his house on 'city water', has had at least 1 $400 water bill due to leak at a connection. No mole or gopher problems.
If your friend uses poly, be sure to install a post to mark where any connections are.
Also, during backfill, put in about 1 ft of backfill, then a tracer on top of that (white wire, poly rope, etc - i've used old roofing and car seats even for 'tracers').
Good idea about the tracer and something to mark connectors. Susan has some old wire that would do for locating the line with a metal detector.I've read some stuff about gophers chewing poly pipe, just can't see why PVC would be any better.
Done both , poly has the advantage that you need fewer connectors. Never had problems with either in terms of gophers. Draw a good drawing of the line in relationship to some stable landmarks, measure and put on the drawing the exact location of the connections. Makes it easy to find things later.
In a very similar situation, long run from a spring house in a location where there are many types of burrowing animals, I installed poly pipe, 1972. Never heard of any problems, animal or otherwise.
About poly fittings. I did a lot of installations with that stuff and it will often leak under pressure if not double clamped with strong hose clamps. I learned to heat the pipe with a propane torch in the area where the clamps would go, close to the end of the pipe, before slipping the clamps into place and tightening them with a socket wrench. Place the clamps over the smooth space on the fitting. Heat the pipe slowly until it's soft, no more.
No gophers here, but lots of poly piping from wells to homes. One of my first bosses taught me that anywhere I put a hose clamp, I could put 2...very cheap insurance. Outside of the gates the trucks were unloadin',
The weather was hot, a-nearly 90 degrees.
The man standin' next to me, his head was exploding,
Well, I was prayin' the pieces wouldn't fall on me.
Never heard the gopher thing, but polyethylene is more durable than PVC when buried. It is more flexible, less resistant to puncture, and doesn't have joints (except at the ends or on really long runs). Natural gas is run in polyethylene. They wouldn't use it nor have certification if gophers ate it.
For clamps, get marine grade that are all stainless steel. Standard hose clamps have stainless bands but plain steel worm screws. Use two or three per joint.
Yep, my well driller taught me about double SS clamps and the heat gun. I've buried a few hundred feet from my well and for sprinkler pipes with great ease and never a leak. If she decides to go with PVC anyway, i recommended threaded over glued connections for extra security.The responses so far confirm that gophers aren't a huge problem with PE, at least not over PVC. It's not my call so i don't have to live with the consequences, but i'd like to get as much info to her as possible before she digs, about two weeks from now.
What about PEX?
Here is NW Washington there is a lot of poly water service pipe, some PVC, and increasingly PEX. I ran 1" soft copper from my well to the house back when it was quasi-affordable. Never heard of gophers, but they sound smart.
To be honest, i hadn't even thought about PEX for this app, but i did some checking and 1" seems to be the largest commonly available size. It's more than twice the cost of 200 psi PE pipe, not to mention the special fittings and tools. (Since this won't be under any pressure except gravity flow, i was suggesting the thicker pipe solely for resistance to punctures.) Do you have any idea why PEX would be used more and more in place of less-expensive PE?
I'll admit I prefer copper, but I can't even afford the stuff to do on my own house right now.
I would do PE over PVC, & I have never seen nor heard of any gofers eating the stuff, & I get the occasional gofer screwin up my grass, but have never had any problems with my PE water service or any of sprinkler risers.
So when my guillotine gofer trap does it's job does the gofer blink if I call its' name?“When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works.” Nigel Calder, editor of New Scientist
I imagine you calling the gopher LOTS of things, none of which are what his momma named him! Before i became an animal rights wacko, i stomped a gopher with my sneakers who raised his head in row of carrots he was systematically demolishing. be a raised-bed gardener
splintie,
Well if you ever go back to a gopher killing way of life I have a tip. Agricultural sulpher...
find a hole or run , dump a shovels worth in it , use a weed burner to ignite it , keep the torch on the sulpher . the gas will spread throughout the tunnel system... No more gohpers or moles. Works as well as my 20 ga. shotgun. ;-)
I haven't had much of a problem since all these cats and dogs adopted me, but there was one in the raised beds, which are fenced off from the mutts, about three years ago. I put dog poop down the hole where my delicata squash had just been. The gopher left Dodge.Hmmm....dog poo as backfill...i see possibilities...
Close, but not quite.
Yellow natural gas pipe is HDPE ( high density polyethalyne) different animal than the stuff from home desperate or blowes. ;-)“When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works.” Nigel Calder, editor of New Scientist
I did some reading on gas pipe materials after reading Wayne's post, which unearthed <groan> some info about cracking in the HDPE stuff in the 1970s, that they switched to MDPE bec it wasn't as brittle. Did they switch back?