The requirements for water supply in the country house are not lower than in urban apartments, but higher: you need to ensure a supply not only to faucets and household appliances, but also for irrigation. Therefore, the pump performance should be high, and the debit of the well or well – a good and stable. Have to solve another problem: in rural areas are often cut off electricity, so it is desirable to have a reserve of water or a reserve way of its “production”. For owners of wells is not complicated: for urgent needs can be a bucket to get, but the well just do not get it. You have to come up with backup schemes.

To organize the supply of water in the country house is possible only with the pump, but it can be served in two ways: from the storage tank or from hydro accumulator.

When using the scheme with the storage tank, you have a reserve of water equal to the volume of the tank, but the pressure in the system is low. It is created by the difference in altitude: the tank is installed at a height – on the attic of the cottage or the roof of the outbuildings. The main condition – its bottom must be above any point of water withdrawal. Then there will be water in the taps.

The second way – with a hydro accumulator is more convenient because the system creates and automatically maintains the pressure. If the accumulator is supplemented with a pump and automation (pressure switch), the entire assembly is called a pumping station. The trick here is in the hydraulic accumulator. This is a cylindrical container, divided into two parts by an elastic membrane. In one part is pumped at low pressure gas, the second part is fed by a pump with water. As it flows in, the water squeezes the gas more and more, which creates a pressure in the system (about 2 Atm).

When the faucet is opened (household appliances are turned on or irrigation begins), water is supplied from the hydraulic accumulator. It gradually reduces the pressure. Its value is controlled by special relays. As soon as the lower threshold is reached, the pump turns on, restoring the set value. The higher threshold is controlled by a second sensor, which turns off the pump.

Such a system of dacha plumbing can be implemented both in winter and in summer. The difference is where to install the equipment and how deep to bury the pipes.

What pipes to choose for the water supply in the house

A decade and a half ago and there were no questions: there was no alternative to steel pipes. Today, however, for country plumbing metal is almost never used: It’s expensive, you need welding for installation, and rust modern pipes quickly and form water leaks. There is a much more practical alternative – plastic pipes. They are for country plumbing – the best solution: just do not rust, and some are not afraid of frost. But plastic – it is different, as well as products made of it.

HDPE pipes

Most often for the water supply in the country house, HDPE – low-pressure polyethylene pipes are used. They are attractive because they can be assembled without any additional devices. Fittings for the assembly of HDPE water pipes are threaded and simply screwed by hand.

HDPE pipes can be welded with a special machine, and you can connect with compression fittings. For the dacha water pipeline, pieces of pipe, tees, adapters are connected using threaded connections. Although it seems that such a connection is unreliable, it can withstand much more than the 2-4 atm you can create at most.

For plumbing, HDPE pipes are suitable for avoiding water leaks, which are marked with blue lines. They are designed for cold water. If the lines are yellow – you can not use them for water supply – they are designed for gas. They contain special additives that make the water unusable.

To install the outdoor (street) water supply at the cottage use HDPE pipes class C and SL, with a diameter of 32 mm, 40 mm and 50 mm. When choosing yet need to decide on the density.

There are three brands of polyethylene: PE 63, 80, 100. These figures indicate the density. The more dense the material, the stronger the products, but also the higher the price. For example, one meter of 32 mm pipe from PE 80 costs from $4 (and more depending on wall thickness). The same diameter, but from PE 100 is from $ 7 per linear meter.

Do you need a high density when making water pipes on the chacha? Probably, yes. Due to the higher density, the walls of the pipes are made thinner, which reduces their weight. If the water in the dacha is taken from a well or well, weight can be an important factor – there will be less problems with fixing the downed pipe.

PVC pipes

For the water supply in the country house use PVC – polyvinyl chloride pipes. They are cheaper than HDPE, connected by cold welding – with glue. Joints are reliable – withstands pressure up to 12-16 atm, service life is declared the same: 50 years.

Since scratches and cracks greatly reduce reliability, threaded joints are not possible. When joining metal pipes or equipment inlets this is a big problem. And if the wiring of pipes on the site – it is not difficult, but the strapping of equipment requires hard work to avoid water leaks detection after the completion of the project. This disadvantage limits the use of this material for exterior plumbing, because PVC is often used for internal distribution, where the risk of scratching is minimal. Even more often they are used for laying drains.

The connection is really reliable. This conclusion is based on personal experience: in the apartment was assembled comb of cold water. Has stood for about 10 years without any problems until it was necessary to redo all distribution due to redevelopment.

Polypropylene (PPP)

Another material that can be used in the wiring of the water supply in the country with their own hands – polypropylene pipes. They also belong to the category of plastics. There are for cold (with blue stripes) and hot water piping, as well as for heating (with red stripes). Connected by soldering and couplings – there are special soldering irons, with which the plastic is heated on the two parts, then they join. After a couple of minutes, the connection becomes monolithic. The soldering iron does not even have to buy (costs about 2-5 thousand rubles) – it is available for rent in the same stores where they sell pipes and fittings for polypropylene plumbing.

The disadvantage of polypropylene pipes is essentially the same – expensive fittings. For example, a meter of pipe for cold water supply 32 mm in diameter (wall thickness 3 mm) is about $ 2, coupling to connect the two sections of the same diameter $ 1.2. Since PPP pipe does not bend, then all assembled with the use of couplings, angles, etc. As a result, the water pipe will not be very cheap, but reliable. After all, this material is used to assemble not only domestic water pipelines, but also industrial routes.

How to assemble a water pipe

Assembling plumbing in the dacha with your own hands, you need to decide in what parts of the plot you need a distribution. The fact that the water must be supplied to the house, of course, is clear. But in addition to the distribution of water throughout the house, you need to irrigate the pipes in the key areas of the site, to put them on the faucet. To them, if necessary, connect a hose and, moving it from place to place or installing a sprinkler, water the nearby beds.

How to make water in the house, read here, and how to make distribution of water on a summer cottage with his hands let’s talk further. It is most convenient to draw a plan on a scale. If you already have beds, you can easily determine where you need to deliver water. It is better to make several watering points: long hoses are uncomfortable and difficult to drag, and having the opportunity to connect several at once, you will cope with watering faster.

When drawing up a scheme, do not forget about the need to install faucets on the main line: a cut after the branch still in the house, and then, on the site, before the first branch. It is desirable to install faucets and on the main line: so you can in case of problems to turn off the emergency section.

Even if you will be equipped with a summer plumbing, you will need to drain the water from the pipes, so that when it freezes, they will not break. To do this, you need a drain valve at the lowest point. That’s when you can close the faucet in the house, and drain all the water, keeping the plumbing safe from winter damage. It is not necessary to do this if the dacha plumbing is installed from polyethylene pipes (HDPE).

After drawing a diagram, count the meterage of the pipes, draw and count what fittings are needed – tees, corners, taps, couplings, adapters, etc.

Then you need to determine the mode of use. There are two options: summer and winter plumbing. They differ in the depth to which the pipes are buried. If you have a dacha all-season, then the dacha itself will have to lay an insulated water pipe or bury it below the depth of frost. For the distribution of irrigation pipes in the dacha is more rational to use the summer version of the water pipe. Winter you will need only if you will be equipped with a greenhouse. Then a section of water pipe to the greenhouse will need to be equipped in a serious way: dig a good ditch and lay insulated pipes.