My water line sprung a leak under my paved driveway. I want to replace the entire line (90 ft) from the meter to the house. The driveway is between the house and the meter - no way around. Can a 3/4 inch copper pipe be snaked under the existing pavement?
Talk with the water company regarding the meter connections I would say. Under cement I have heard of a water jet solution ( high power/pressure ) to snake a passage under and across the driveway or sidewalk. Asphalt - maybe cut and repair the shortest distance across the drive; with the least disturbance, nearest the garage or sidewalk so not to be as obvious, if you can't go around.
Oren "My doctor says I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes."
I've seen cable lines be snaked under existing driveways. Maybe it can be done with pipe.
I did it on a 12 foot driveway. Used a garden hose and a pvc pipe. Is there any reason you are going to use copper instead of PVC?
ChrisGW
If the current pipe under the driveway is a straight shot, consider using it as a guide.for a PVC pipe to jet over it.
cheers Bob
It really depends on your dirt. I shot a 1" 25' under my driveway. I shot a 2" under the garage floor and hit a 1' square hole I cut in the floor 20' away.
This is Florida and the dirt is sand. If you are in rocks and clay, forget about it.
When we replaced a broken water main in 1984 they only dug like three ditches and snaked the pipe through the ground ev'tho there was no pavement, just grass above.
It did stunt the growth of one azalea to this day.
BTW, the closest we got to figuring out WHY it broke was to blame water hammers created by the flow restrictors the gas company sent us.
- = - Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian ---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
not likely. although in what climate: where's the frost line? in what soil?
Where are you? Depends on how deep (due to frost) and what sort of soil. If it's deep enough and the soil is troublesome enough then there's not much alternative to trenching. But if the soil's not hard clay and filled with rocks and you're not in a zone requiring deep burial then perhaps.
Around here the driveway is laid over a bed of fill, and I think tunneling through that would be almost impossible. I would also consider whether your original line was laid in the fill before they paved, which would make it difficult to reuse that path. Here, however, where we have freezing winters, the water lines are buried much deeper and I think tunneling would be an option unless you have really rocky ground.
I had to do this to put in a sprinkling system. I had some pvc laying around, about two inches in diameter. I cut some teeth into the end and dug a pit down to where I wanted to start the tunnel; it immediately became apparent that the pvc was too long to get level in the pit, so I cut it to an appropriate length, inserted the garden hose (I bought one of those high pressure nozzles) and turned on the water. With a strap wrench, I turned the pvc while pushing it. When I got to the end of my short piece of pvc, I just took out the hose, glued on another length of pvc, and went back to tunneling. It was slow muddy work, I found more rocks than I anticipated, but I finally had enough pvc in there that I knew the end was beyond the driveway; it was fairly easy to dig down and find the end, thanks to the water bubbling up. I just left the pvc in there and ran the water line inside it; if I get a leak in 50 or 75 years, I'll already have my tunnel dug.
I've never used a trench> My water line sprung a leak under my paved driveway. I want to replace the
pipe Hook it two 3/4" soft roil copper Hook the other end of pipe two vehicle bumper the just pull it threw. I would definitely use copper under driveway ( or for that matter the whole line) Any copper joints should be brazed not solider. ( code in my area ) that's why you want to use Soft Roll copper no joints. If you can't pull the copper under the driveway you right back where you started nothing to lose .
When I had a waterline installed to replace my well, they had to go 4 feet deep to avoid frost and under a septic drain field. They used a horizontal drill machine that went about 75 feet to where the pipe entered the house. For the gas line they used an air powered "torpedo" that drove through solid soil to the entry point.
There are options out there without digging up the entire driveway, just a start hole and a finish hole.
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