My 91 year old grandfather gave me a project last fall - find an old water well to revive to provide water to livestock in case we have another drought year. We have 2 creeks and 5 ponds on the ~ 650 acre place in Hamilton county (more specifically google Gentry's Mill, hence the username) but all went dry last summer. We used the water well at grandpa's house to support a trough and apparently had some miscommunication somewhere when I arrived to find a burned up pressure pump and no water.

Anyway, my best friend from A&M happens to be a 5th generation water well business owner. He checked 3 old wells for water and found water in 2 of them. The best well is only 140' from an existing power pole. Me and my buddy dropped in a pump & motor by hand and fired up a generator. Water smells a bit but couldn't be cleaner. I met the co-op out there in March and now we have a meter for our well.

I'm taking a day off from my real job tomorrow to go meet my water well buddy to finish up the well project on the surface. My next task at hand is connecting the water well to a trough.

I'm looking for recommendations on the best way to connect the well to a trough with an automatic shut off valve when the trough is full.

On another property in Mills county, we bury water hose and run the water hose to the trough with a cheap float from TSC. We've found this solution to be higher maintenance but easy to repair/service/replace. But this is also sheep & goats without wild hogs.

The Hamilton county water well rival project will have a permanently located trough. Cattle will be the primary customer at the trough. There are lots of (unwelcome) wild hogs on the property that will likely make a mess around the trough.

Im thinking of running PVC from a ball valve at the well underground to the trough. Use t-posts and panels to block cows from the PVC to the trough connection. Use the simplest style float possible (like the one below?) and call it good.

Should I learn to work with pex for this project?

Any specific recommendations on floats/valves?

We do have a plan to drain the system and/or winterize for cold weather. We're still haunted by February '21.

We will put a clean concrete cinder block in the trough so raccoons and squirrels can escape from drowning.

What did I miss? We want this project to be low maintenance and reliable. Open to any and all suggestions!

TIA

Something like this?

Few pics from the project

Sorry double post of pics

We have three wells on our ranch that feed water troughs.
You can't just run the pipe from the pump outlet to the trough. You need either a pressure tank of some size that the well pump can pump into and build pressure to shut off and go from the pressure tank to the trough with a float valve.
If you go this path make sure you use a specific low pressure cut off pressure switch at your pump so that if the pipe or float valve get broke off your pump won't just sit there and run and pump water everywhere. That type of pressure switch will sense the low pressure if the pipe or valve break and shut your pump off.
We bought regular polyurethane 500 gallon tanks and put designed float valves in them wired back to the pump controllers.
Then gravity fed out of them ( the 500 gal tanks) to our troughs.
I would also tell you to make sure and put a controller in your pump that is called a " Pump-Tek". This will protect your pump if the well can't keep up with the pump or the well runs dry. The Pump Tek senses current change if the pump runs out of water and immediately shuts it off before it burns the impellers up. The Pump Teks also have a timer built in that you can set to allow your well to replenish if it merely is a low GPM well.
Also install lightning arrestors in your pump control box. They will save you a ton of money believe me.

Yes we will have a pressure tank and low pressure switch. My well buddy is doing all of that tomorrow.

Just make sure he uses the Pump Tek controller and installs the lightning arrestors. Lots of well guys just use standard pump controllers.
On our ranch in the Ozarks we did the wells with as you are with pressure tanks.
We used the concrete troughs that bring the water up through the bottom with a brass float valve. That stops all the plumbing issues of broken pipes and valves hanging on the outside of the tank and trying to protect them from animals and freezing.

Your buddy wouldn't happen to have a water well business in Jacksboro would he?

Run the pvc line 18 inches deep right up under the tank and come through the bottom with a float valve. An exposed pipe and faucet coming up beside the tank is just asking to get broken off by your cattle. Also don't have to worry about the pipe freezing being above ground.

Those are great floats. Use them extensively in some other applications. They are dead simple and can't get triggered (and stuck) like the old school little giants that mount to the side of the tank. I'd also add a tee upstream amd include a freeze miser.

Just my $.02

We use galvanized pipe for the last 20 ft going to the trough and up to the float for 2 reasons:
1) Cows are stupid and can crowd the trough, jump in the trough or get bored and scratch themselves on the piping. PVC flexes but unless properly protected, the right cow or bull will cause you lots of repair headaches.
2) Burying the supply pipe deeper is best for protection but if you have to hand dig the trench can be a pain in the a.. so in the case trough overflows or you get a lot of rain cows will tromp up the immediate area around the trough and eventually could sink down enough to step on the pipe. If it is pvc there is a greater chance of breaking and thats not going to be the cleanest of repairs. This can also be avoided by putting a load of gravel around the trough (although my dad knows a guy and we get crushed concrete).

We use both the TSC basic floats (galvanized) on smaller troughs and the hudson valves on larger troughs since they have be connnected to a larger pipe. Both work well and have similar maintenance concerns

We use/ like the Hudson valve illustrated. Prefer schedule 40 pvc pipe and fittings. Easier to repair when there's a problem. Net wire or cattle panel around the well and pressure tank and I like a small entry gate.
Like to have a 110 outdoor outlet at the well/ tank location. They come in handy for numerous purposes including a heater or drop light during a hard freeze. Will try to add some photos.

TdoubleH said:

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Your buddy wouldn't happen to have a water well business in Jacksboro would he?

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No but I know who you are talking about! My buddy is Millican Well Service, was out of Fort Worth for ages but they moved their shop to Boyd last year. They were at Golden Triangle & I-35 so you can imagine why they wanted to move.

All great tips so far. Please keep them coming!

I run poly pipe until I get close to the trough and transition to pvc from there. I just use floats from TSC and use a stainless hose to connect from the pvc to the float. I use t-posts to anchor everything and never had an issue

GentrysMillTX10 said:

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TdoubleH said:

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Your buddy wouldn't happen to have a water well business in Jacksboro would he?

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No but I know who you are talking about! My buddy is Millican Well Service, was out of Fort Worth for ages but they moved their shop to Boyd last year. They were at Golden Triangle & I-35 so you can imagine why they wanted to move.

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I'm in Paradise. I had Erwin out to drill one on Monday. Solid group of guys. Don't recall reaching out to Millican. I will be needing a second one drilled.

TdoubleH said:

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GentrysMillTX10 said:

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TdoubleH said:

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Your buddy wouldn't happen to have a water well business in Jacksboro would he?

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No but I know who you are talking about! My buddy is Millican Well Service, was out of Fort Worth for ages but they moved their shop to Boyd last year. They were at Golden Triangle & I-35 so you can imagine why they wanted to move.

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I'm in Paradise. I had Erwin out to drill one on Monday. Solid group of guys. Don't recall reaching out to Millican. I will be needing a second one drilled.

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Millican doesn't drill anymore - but they will sub a drilling job and make sure it's right