Steel or Pex for Underground?

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wnycoalier
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Post by wnycoalier » Sun. Oct. 26, 2014 10:53 pm

1.5" Pex prepackaged is 7$ a foot since I can pick it up locally from outdoor furnace supply. with 3 wraps in pvc
1.5" Steel from home depot is 5 a foot ( plus for 2 bucks for insulation and pvc barrier home brew)
Balancing increased labor of steel against confiscatory pex fitting costs and it looks like a wash. I have to go 100 feet from the shop to the house. Plastic to me is sketchy with its history of failures. I have some pexsupply dot co fittings on rifeng tubing that are dripping and need to be redone from last fall. Yet my well pump is running on schedule 80 black plastic for the past 30 years. And the cottage has year round exposed black irrigation plastic tubing from the lake up to the cabin getting sun soaked 9 months of the year and is still as pliable as new despite being from the early 70's. I didn't see a definitive thread on the topic, so I'm curious what opinions come up.


 
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McGiever
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Post by McGiever » Sun. Oct. 26, 2014 11:05 pm

Nobody buries steel pipe anymore, especially China made electro welded seam stuff.

Would you have to bury a PEX fitting in the ground?

 
wnycoalier
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Post by wnycoalier » Sun. Oct. 26, 2014 11:12 pm

McGiever wrote:Nobody buries steel pipe anymore, especially China made electro welded seam stuff.

Would you have to bury a PEX fitting in the ground?
Both would be burried within insulated pvc.

 
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davidmcbeth3
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Post by davidmcbeth3 » Sun. Oct. 26, 2014 11:14 pm

Go pex and use shark attachments ...

They even make a machine that will bury the stuff in one shot ... nice.

 
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Post by waldo lemieux » Sun. Oct. 26, 2014 11:37 pm

do not put steel pipe in the ground. do not bury a pex fitting if you don't have to. if you do have to mark the location of the fitting so as to be able to monitor its viability.

 
Mikeeg02
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Post by Mikeeg02 » Mon. Oct. 27, 2014 12:13 am

I ran 5 wrapped, 1" pex-al-pex. It was a little over $4 per foot , shipped. It uses compression type fittings which cost more. But it's also slightly larger than 1" ID. I believe it has a similar rating as standard pex for temperature. But for that price, and being that it's ID measurement was true 1", I went with it.

I believe that black plastic pipe used for well pumps is adequate, though I don't know of its upper temperature limits.

 
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Post by lzaharis » Mon. Oct. 27, 2014 12:41 am

First, you get what you pay for.

I guess my feeling is that you can buy the thirteen dollar per foot
PEX that has closed cell foam inside the four inch tubing that you
can lay on the ground and lose zero heat if you want.


 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Mon. Oct. 27, 2014 6:33 am

We buried our pex in 2006,no issues to current date,no buried fittings even with 180' runs. Steel pipe in ground is a very bad idea, besides you would have lots of buried fittings with it ,black plastic pipe will not work for hot water. Maybe some people have trouble with pex because they buy the cheapest junk they can find. Buy the best,with the best insulation,bury it once,bury it for a life time. Keep It Sensibly Simple does not always mean cheap.

 
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Post by Scottscoaled » Mon. Oct. 27, 2014 8:38 pm

The latest and greatest up our way is to dig a thin, shallow trench and run unisulates Pex-al-pex. It can be had very cheap. I paid 50 cents a foot last time I bought it. Suspend the pipe down about 18" and have the spray foam boys cover it. It's waterproof, real well insulated and is economical.

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Mon. Oct. 27, 2014 9:12 pm

Scott,that sounds like a good way to go,how wide do they make the ditch ? 12 " ?? $.50/ft for the pex,single run ?? How much per linear ft of foam ??

 
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Post by lzaharis » Tue. Oct. 28, 2014 12:49 pm

As you only have one hundred feet feet/two hundred feet of
distance with feed and return-

Steel pipe gets buried all the time for gas lines and petroleum pipelines.
The difference is the pipe coating is epoxy paint to reduce any corrosion to a minimum.

Saying that:

Another option is schedule 80 pipe with either threaded joints or welded joints and painting it
with expoxy paint after it is threaded together.

assuming you do not have a welder:

So you would need:

1 can teflon pipe dope, 2 rolls teflon pipe tape

10 schedule 80 pipe joints-threaded 20 feet long

14 schedule 80 threaded pipe couplers; est.

8 schedule 80 threaded elbows; est.

8 schedule 80 45-degree elbows for entrance/exit into trench

various short pieces/schedule 80 threaded nipples to transition to boiler/home/shop etc.
you could use schedule forty inside for building connections.

One gallon of epoxy paint- the more you use it the better the protection.
You can paint the fittings and unthreaded pipe sections before you thread them together and paint the exposed threads after the leak and heat tests before you seal it in closed cell foam.

The forty five degree elbows are to make the transition from the
bottom of the trench to the surface.

"From what I have read and understand of the subject"

Pex piping is susceptable to bacterial growth at some point in the temperature swings
as well as oxidation problems.

Many folks have foamed their pipe in trenches after creating adequate drainage and bedding
the trench with sand and are happy with the results.

I guess I would want to examine the issue completely and not just go by price ONLY AND I MEAN ONLY if
you are intent on heating water above 160 degrees.

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Tue. Oct. 28, 2014 1:15 pm

Pex is & has been buried for yrs with no problem,OWB water is generally at 180*,no problem,pex is not the problem,uneducated people are the problem. Why would anyone in a normal mind frame even consider burying steel pipe with lots of joints that can potentially leak ?? Buy good quality pex,it can easily handle 200*,no buried fittings or joints,can be insulated to your specification,like Scott mentioned about the in-ditch foaming process. OR do it the hard way,expensive way, most problematic way. It is your choice,after all.

 
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Sting
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Post by Sting » Tue. Oct. 28, 2014 1:32 pm

Wisconsin Public service has buried plastic for over 50 years - they transition to a coated and bitchum warped black iron for stub-outs

Guess where most of the drama occurs

 
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McGiever
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Post by McGiever » Tue. Oct. 28, 2014 5:54 pm

lzaharis wrote:As you only have one hundred feet feet/two hundred feet of
distance with feed and return-

Steel pipe gets buried all the time for gas lines and petroleum pipelines.
The difference is the pipe coating is epoxy paint to reduce any corrosion to a minimum.

Saying that:

Another option is schedule 80 pipe with either threaded joints or welded joints and painting it
with expoxy paint after it is threaded together.

assuming you do not have a welder:

So you would need:

1 can teflon pipe dope, 2 rolls teflon pipe tape

10 schedule 80 pipe joints-threaded 20 feet long

14 schedule 80 threaded pipe couplers; est.

8 schedule 80 threaded elbows; est.

8 schedule 80 45-degree elbows for entrance/exit into trench

various short pieces/schedule 80 threaded nipples to transition to boiler/home/shop etc.
you could use schedule forty inside for building connections.

One gallon of epoxy paint- the more you use it the better the protection.
You can paint the fittings and unthreaded pipe sections before you thread them together and paint the exposed threads after the leak and heat tests before you seal it in closed cell foam.

The forty five degree elbows are to make the transition from the
bottom of the trench to the surface.

"From what I have read and understand of the subject"

Pex piping is susceptable to bacterial growth at some point in the temperature swings
as well as oxidation problems.

Many folks have foamed their pipe in trenches after creating adequate drainage and bedding
the trench with sand and are happy with the results.

I guess I would want to examine the issue completely and not just go by price ONLY AND I MEAN ONLY if
you are intent on heating water above 160 degrees.
Love to see the price for all this material.

They don't buy pipeline pipe at Home Depot
Ever price out Schedule 80 Seamless Pipe?

 
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Post by cabinover » Tue. Oct. 28, 2014 7:46 pm

I have working with repiping LP gas trucks. Berry, berry expensive to you grasshopper. Go Pex-al-pex either pre-wrapped expensive or suspended if you can find someone to spray foam. That's the win.

I did my own the first time, my own inexpensive P-A-P with hand-wrapped insulation inside corrugated tubing. Next year I replaced all of my "inexpensive" work after planting daisies in February...in Vermont.

YMMV


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