Springs

[Graye]

Following on from the well thread, I can see some people have water supplied via a spring. So I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this please? This is a bit of a long post but I do get there in the end...

We currently have a bore hole (nasty sulphurous stuff but plenty of it). The house was originally supplied by a spring and we have the rights to go onto a neighbour's land to maintain/repair the supply. The spring supply was not connected (despite what the vendors told us) when we moved in and we have finally managed to begin to establish where the supply comes from etc. The spring is about a quarter of a mile across a couple of fields and up a very steep hill. A blue supply pipe runs straight across this field (barely covered) to a storage tank, and then, apparently, to the house (can't actually see that one - the blue one was laid a few years ago as the original black one (presumably buried in the field) became blocked and I imagine the black one then carries on down to the house.

So far so good! BUT, apparently the owner of the field damaged the last few metres of the blue pipe before it reached the storage tank (some sort of ongoing inheritance dispute, nothing to do with us and we have now established the fact that we have the rights to the water quite amicably - the damaged pipes are diplomatically NOT being mentioned...). So we have to reconnect that and unclog the pipes at the spring end. Now the problem, assuming we can sort that lot out, is where on earth the supply enters our property. The previous owners are worse than useless and have no idea or don't want to say. I can see a slim bright green pipe entering the corner of the garden and disappearing underground. It pops up again nearer the house, this time in a black rubber sheath. BUT this is also chopped before it gets into the house itself. Presumably the previous owner did this at the point they had the borehole, despite telling us it's still connected. The spring supply apparently ran out on the other side of the house to an outside loo/shower and taps for the polytunnel etc. Under the house we have a maze of tiny low rooms (the house is built into a hill) and apparently a diverter valve to switch from borehole to spring for the whole house, or another stoptap (can't find that one yet, it's apparently "under a stone somewhere", great description when there is an acre of overgrown land) so that the borehole can supply the house and the spring water flows to the outside places independently.

My main question though concerns the green pipe (told you I would get there, thanks for sticking with me...) It's very slim, somewhat less than half an inch in diameter. And it has a clear pastic insert running through it, like the spokes of a wheel. So it's presumably even more restricted. I can't see this being a main water supply (this is not an old house and it's large) but I can't imagine what else it might be and can't locate anything else. Does anyone have any clues what this pipe is designed to do, and also what this type of piping is called?

[MKG]

At a guess, I'd say it sounds like PEX water piping.

Google that and see what you think.

Mike

[Graye]

Thanks MKG. I looked at Pex and can't see anything which looks like this one. Here's a photo (poor quality, iphone plus it's raining) but you can see the "insert" goes right across the piping rather than a sort of outer sleeve, which is what Pex seems to be.

[Thomzo]

My first instinct was armoured cable with the copper stripped out (or rotted away). Are you sure it's hollow throughout?

Zoe

[bill1953]

Yeh me too.

[MuddyWitch]

Fiber optic or cable telly? It does seem to have an anti-crush layer so maybe gas? (from a tank somewhere?)

MW

[Graye]

Bit of a mystery here!

I'll try to take a clearer photo tomorrow. The green pipe is loose inside the black one, as if it's just been pushed through for protection at that point. On the other hand the green piping is hard plastic so presumably needs little protection, and it's bare at the point it comes into the garden off the field (only a couple of feet are showing there, the rest disappears underground. Three lengths have been cut off (about a metre each) at the point it gets near to the house and there is no signs of any copper, nor any signs that any has been removed from the piece which comes out of the ground.

We are miles from anywhere so definitely not fibre optics, cable TV etc. There is now Calor heating but the tank is at the front of the house and is newly installed with underground piping directly into the house. The heating was previously oil from a storage tank, but I can see the old (white) pipe for this.

Thanks for the ideas so far, I really appreciate this.

[bill1953]

Hi are you sure the insert runs right through and is this anything like it?

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/25767 ... _pipe.html

Bill

[MuddyWitch]

The anti-crush bit is the layer between the green plastic & the 'holey' inner, if it's a hard compound or dense powder.

This is so intriguing!


MW

[Thomzo]

The black pipe looks like armour sheathing that is used (or used to be used) to protect all sorts of pipes and cables when buried outside. Even if the green pipe is tough, the black sheathing gives it extra protection from being accidentally cut through with a spade. Is the green hose bonded to the bit inside it with the spokes, or are they separate? Also, how big is it (the diameter)?

I wonder if the 'spokes' are some kind of anti-kink device but the pipe looks too narrow to be for water from the photo, hence my question about the size.

Cheers
Zoe

[MKG]

It's not an electrical cable - there's no conductor. And that black sheathing wouldn't be enough to prevent a spade cut - you'd need steel-wire armoured cable for that. Besides, it's a very loose-looking sheath. I suspect that it's more for thermal shielding than anything else (the air gap would help) and so the pipe is intended to carry either water or gas. Once again, though, I would have expected more robust protection if it was gas. So - water, despite its thinness. With a bit of pressure behind it, you'd get a fair flow through it. It may not fill your bath very quickly directly - but that's what storage tanks are for.

Only my opinion, though.

Mike

[oldjerry]

It's quite early,and so I may be losing the plot, but couldn't you fix the spring end of the pipe,send someone up there with a mobile phone,tell them to switch it on,and see what happens? BW

[Green Aura]

OH said pretty much the same thing as Mike. The cross will stop the pipe collapsing if there's a disruption in the water supply, which there could be in the summer, And the black pipe stops it freezing if it's near ground level.

If it's not connected at the top can't you pour a bucket of water down it and see what happens?

[Graye]

OK, there is no open pipework coming out of the storage tank and the water is below the level of the out pipe. So we are going to put a bucket under the chopped off end nearest the house and take a couple of 5 gallon containers of water up there to raise the water level in the storage tank. Mobiles are no use, we don't get a signal here, but the bucket should have something in it if a) it's the right pipe and b) there are no more cuts/blockages on the way down.

Thanks for the ideas and I'll report back...

[Odsox]

Sorry, I don't subscribe to the "no collapsing" theory for the pipe. Everywhere around here uses alkathene pipe which looks like the Graye's outer black pipe and you wouldn't collapse one of those if you parked a lorry on top of it.
As others have said it looks far too small for water anyway, although of course there is the possibility that someone used the wrong pipe, but I would suggest the green pipe is for pressure and the fins are to stop it ballooning, so either a compressed air line, pressurised oil pipe for feeding a boiler "up hill" from an underground tank or a Calor gas feed.