I discovered that when my property was subdivided a long time ago, the water line from the original meter was never re-routed or provided with an easement to give me access to the line from my property line to the meter. It crosses maybe 250-300 yards of the neighbor's lot somewhere or other between my meter and the property line.

The water company can relocate my meter to the end of my driveway where their distribution line does have an easement and access, but I would have to lay about 2000 feet of water line to get from there to my house, down my driveway and across my property.

Any ideas on the best way to trench this in? I am in Bastrop county so fortunately the soil is 2-3 feet of sand with a bit of chert rocks on top of clay. I think 12" to 16" should be plenty deep as most of it will be a straight shot parallel to the long entrance drive. Maybe rent a track hoe with a narrow bucket, or a trenching machine? Would a middle buster behind a tractor be able to get deep enough? PEX or PVC?

I figure I can do it a few hundred feet at a time over a few weekends and then splice it all in the day I can get the water company to move the meter.

My Marine Corps self says to tell you to use an MRE spoon.

Unless you are a good operator on a mini ex, a ditch witch would probably be the quickest.

I'm a fan of pex but I don't know how it compares price wise to PVC.

I'd save up and rent one of these

https://www.ditchwitch.com/trenchers/ride-on/rt45

we did about 50' via hand as a quick and it almost killed me........when we went back for a permanent fix, we rented one and had it all done in about 1/4 of the time. Seeing that you are in sand, you might be able to get by with one of the walk behind ones.

Use PVC, Pex would be a waste of money. Schedule 40 PVC is what you want, and a water line that length needs to be 2", otherwise pressure drop is going to limit your flow at the house.

Get a trencher. If you lived closer, I'd let you borrow mine. It's an old Case TF300, but still runs and operates ok. I put many mikes in that thing back in my plumbing days.

N.M.

I agree with ought1ag on the machine. We use them to put in silt fence all the time. If it were me doing it all solo, I would assemble and glue PVC near where you will be trenching the line one weekend. If doing pex you may not need to do it the weekend before you trench. Then rent the tractor trencher the following weekend. This way you can trench, put the PVC in the hole and then backfill all in one day. The tractor trencher has a blade on the front that you can use to backfill(extremely helpful). This way you would only need a day rental on the trencher. Renting for the weekend may not be much more. If you have help it could probably be done in a day, hell if you start early enough you may be able to do it in a day by yourself.

Also I'd reccomend calling 811 even if you know(or think you know) where your utilities are.

You want a minimum of 24" of cover. Less than that and you open yourself up to a much higher probability of something causing a line break down the road. Ideally 36", but that is probably overkill for what you want.

2" minimum, and be sure to check your friction losses. Your water company should be able to tell you what the pressure in the main is. Make sure their pressure reducing valve doesn't choke off too much pressure. You want at least 40psi at the connection point to the house.

Use Sch. 80 PVC. You will be glad you did, even if the cost is about 1.5x that of Sch. 40

Build in some expansion loops every 500 feet so that the pipe can move without affecting the pipe performance. And bed it with bank sand, 4" below and 6" above. That gives the pipe the ability to move with temperature changes and cushions it against shrinking and swelling of the surrounding soils.

A trencher is the way to go, get one that has a 6" wide tooth.

Trencher is the way to go. Did 4200' in a day and a half. Id get on and off the trencher as needed to join the pipe. It will run straight for a bit, just have to keep an eye on it.

On pipe size, I did 1.5" at 4200' long and slightly uphill. Still have 90psi at the house. Your size depends on your starting pressure and elevation change.

Definitely rent a trencher. I put 1800' in about 10 years ago and the trencher was perfect. My brother in law rode the trencher while I made all of the plumbing connections.

I got it all done in a day, but it was a long day.

I know this isn't what you asked but, I just went through this on some new property, and the water corporation manager said that if a line was run across another person's property on the way to the property in question back in the day, it is an implied easement and access in the case of a break or upgrade should be granted.
May not be what you are looking for but 300 yds is shorter than 2000 ft.

I used 2" black PE pipe for a 1300' run uphill. Comes in 500' rolls so less joints to deal with over PVC. Only thing is it is kind of tough to unroll. We used a 4 wheeler to pull it out and as it laid in the sun it became easier to maneuver.

Ditch witch trencher is the only appropriate answer for 2000 ft...I went a little longer than that in a few hours...find out the pressure at the meter, for me I went 2 inch about 1/2 way then down to 1.5"

https://www.werentit.com/product/trencher-42hp-ride-on/

I've seen them get 800' to 1000' in a day, to 4' of depth. If it's less, obviously faster.

Regarding the piping material, I recommend poly-ethylene (jointless) over PVC. 90+% of the failures of PVC are at the joints, so why not use a jointless pipe? Just need to get a fitting for the start and the end to change it over to standard PVC or pex.

Call the 800 dig test number before doing to make sure there are not any unknown utilities.
I have laid miles of one inch schedule 40 pvc water lines to pastures and houses and more miles of two inch 500 foot roll pipe for gas lines to irrigation motors. I would talk to local plumbing cos and builders to see What size pipe you need. Get bids and free info before doing yourself. I have never needed two inch water lines.
If renting a trencher, get the larger diesel powered one with a front backfill blade. We once rented a small gas powered machine that was slow and had problems going thru tree roots.

I'm in Bastrop county too.

I agree with ought1Ag on the rider trencher.

Go to We Rent It just west of Bastrop on hwy71. That's where I went when I had to put in my water line a few years ago. Get one with the blade on the front so you can cover up the trench.

I went with 2 inch pvc. My line was about 5,000 ft. I had two helpers behind me laying and gluing the pipe. Did it in a 1/2 day.

FWIW the existing line is 1". The new line would be over an elevation drop of around 30-40 feet over 2000 feet from the water company line to the house.

I want to get the line on my drive fir a few reasons: the old line is crap thin wall 1" PVC and one undetected break already cost me $600 in water bills. If I put the new line on the drive, I'll go past it all the time coming and going and should notice signs of any break. Moving the meter would also make it much easier to access it too. Plus, then I have an all new water run that should last a good long time before any repair might be needed.

Definitely going to rent a trencher based on advice. Pre-splicing long lengths of pvc sounds like a good idea too.

In Bastrop, give Mathis Rentals a shout. His place is between We Rent It and Sames Ford.

I worked for the owners for a bit when they first opened up in Bastrop. He'll beat anyone's rental prices even at a loss just to earn your business.

Machines rent by the day and you can accrue 8 hrs on the hour meter per rental day. If you rent on a Saturday, return would be Monday morning so you could trench on Saturday and backfill on a Sunday. You'd still be held to the 8 machine hours though. Most equipment rental places operate by these guidelines.

Whoever you decide to rent from, make sure to reserve machine in advance and let them know trench width so they have time to swap out blocks if the need to.

Ornlu said:

---

https://www.werentit.com/product/trencher-42hp-ride-on/

I've seen them get 800' to 1000' in a day, to 4' of depth. If it's less, obviously faster.

Regarding the piping material, I recommend poly-ethylene (jointless) over PVC. 90+% of the failures of PVC are at the joints, so why not use a jointless pipe? Just need to get a fitting for the start and the end to change it over to standard PVC or pex.

---

Because PE pipe is thin walled and in moving soils it is notorious for structural failures. It is also prone to collapsing with too much soil load on it. Good for really shallow bury and light pressure, but I wouldn't use it for anything outside of that.

Make sure the trencher has a clean out bar on it. We did this about 30 years ago. The machine wouldn't clean the trench very well. I was too young to run it or to verify why.

I don't know how many couplers we have replaced over the years, but we went cheap and are in heavy black clay. Definitely bed it and put in expansion places if possible. I've never seen the pipe itself break, but countless couplers. Schedule 80 is a good idea.

We also have breaks way too often after the WSC fixes a leak in the main line and repressurizes their line.

As others have said on here, a ride-on trencher would be best. You could knock the whole thing out in a weekend.

Is this property large enough to hunt? Maybe we could work out a trade to get you a trench and some meat in the freezer for me.

I'd bury tracking wire in case you ever need to find it in the future years down the road

Go rent a few trenchers. There's always several of them available standing out in front of Home Depot and Lowe's

A few thoughts: you need to re-figure head loss if the supply line is above your house in elevation to see if you can drop down a pipe size.

You also could possibly put in some sort of pressure tank/inlet check valve and run a smaller line. You would have a reservoir of water at higher pressure, and when that drops the supply line would provide 40 psi makeup water (eventually). Not sure if this is cost effective, you would have to price it out and see if anyone else has a setup that works. It will be different from a well in that the makeup water will be slower and at lower pressure until flow tapers down and pressure can build back up again. May need a larger tank than normal for that reason.

And what no one else will say, but I will: you need to buy your pipe and fittings from a plumbing supply house or wholesaler that handles higher quality stuff. They will have MUCH deeper weld sockets, and possibly be constructed of better grade material that is more impact resistant than the stuff sold at big box stores.

Anything exposed needs to be protected from UV light and freezing.