Our New Toy

[Oldgator73]

Back on the farm all our water for house & barn came from a spring. Some of it flowing through good ol' lead pipes no less! Seasonal cabin also supplied by spring water.

Be curious to hear what you come up with. Seems to make sense to at least start with spring water and see how that goes and perhaps being able to avoid the much higher cost of drilling.

Our son dug a small shallow pit where the spring is. It quickly filled up. I took a clean plastic bucket and filled it from the spring. We made coffee with it. Delicious.

 

[Rob&Deryl]

If the ground is easy to dig 4-5’ deep, consider renting a mini excavator and doing a trench from the pole near the street and burying the utilities. Put at least 4 pvc runs in the trench. One for power , telephone, cable, and a spare for perhaps a light at the driveway entrance. You may be able to (or required to) put the meter on a post near the street (power companies like to install remote read meters that they drive past to read), then out the bottom into the trench. My meter is 50’ up my 350’ drive.
Major benefit is you have at least hurricane proofed the wires on your land.
on mine, I ran a stub off the drive every 75’ for driveway lights. My mistake was under estimating how far off the drive the lights were and since much was rock, extending the pvc the extra few feet after the rock hammer left was painfull.

 

[jymbee]

IPut at least 4 pvc runs in the trench. One for power , telephone, cable, and a spare for perhaps a light at the driveway entrance.

Words of wisdom. We have two very long runs for underground utilities & cable at home. Both around 900 feet. One run there's conduit for power, another for phone & cable and another for "future use". Some thought I was crazy to spend the extra $$ for empty conduit but it has paid for itself many times over since then for uses we did not anticipate at the time.

A factor I had to consider at the time was the hellacious task of digging the trenches initially given the rocky ground around here. Even with our decent size commercial backhoe I had a struggle to move some sedan size boulders out of the way.

Bottom line as you state: Lay in a spare.

 

[Rene T]

Some thought I was crazy to spend the extra $$ for empty conduit but it has paid for itself many times over since then for uses we did not anticipate at the time.

What were the uses?

 

[Roy M]

My then landlord bought a new Kubota BX2650 with 54" mower deck and front end loader for use around the hacienda. I tried to steer him into something heavier but he was having none of it, he has OCD. I loved it for mowing, it worked ok for snow removal but pretty much useless for anything like moving sand or soil. It was too light, just sat there and spun trying to fill the bucket.

 

[Oldgator73]

Got the 3 point hitch from Amazon today.

 

[Ex-Calif]

Our power comes from down the street, across the street, across the creek and down the road to in front of the property. That cost me $9,000. I have to set a 16’ 4x4 with a meter box.

Yeah - that's what scares me - LOL...

At the rate you're going with respect to learning all the ins and outs, YOU will eventually be the go-to guy your neighbors come to with their questions.

As an engineer I am a real, "Trust but Verify" kinda guy. So many people, like the officials who are supposed to know, have never read their own rules.

In terms of "picking" service folks I have been really lucky so far. Two recommendations and both were great. In a town this small word of mouth is pretty important. Most of these folks all went to HS together (40 years ago) and inherited the family businesses...

 

[Ex-Calif]

Our son dug a small shallow pit where the spring is. It quickly filled up. I took a clean plastic bucket and filled it from the spring. We made coffee with it. Delicious.

When you are all done consider getting the water tested. I'm sure it's fine but it's a nice piece of mind thing. I'll be doing that with my well water. The driller said that he eyeballed all the neighbors and none of them are using filtration which bodes well (ha, ha) for good water.

If the ground is easy to dig 4-5’ deep, consider renting a mini excavator and doing a trench from the pole near the street and burying the utilities. Put at least 4 pvc runs in the trench. One for power , telephone, cable, and a spare for perhaps a light at the driveway entrance. You may be able to (or required to) put the meter on a post near the street (power companies like to install remote read meters that they drive past to read), then out the bottom into the trench. My meter is 50’ up my 350’ drive.

I plan to do as much buried as possible. I will probably not run power to the gate. Planning solar and battery to power the gate light and gate opener. Not sure if there is enough sun penetration through the canopy though.

County requires the ditches to stay open and installation to be inspected. Power 18 inches deep, water 12 inches deep, yada, yada, yada...

 

[Charlie 5320]

I bought a set of forks from Amazon for my BX2670, they are the clamp on type. Also bought a Piranha tooth bar for the bucket, turns it into a digging machine. It really stiffens up the front of the bucket and only held on by 2 bolts. Can be removed real easy if ya need a smooth cutting edge. Works great for taking small trees out. I also have a blade and snow blower for the front of the tractor. Probably the best money I've spent in my whole life.

 

[jymbee]

What were the uses?

Sister has a small seasonal cabin between the source and our place. She "vowed" she was going to remain off the grid. Years later... not so much. Rather that redigging up around 300 feet of ground to install new power line, we were able to just tee off the empty conduit and pull through to her place.

Also ran extra conduit when we built the detached garage. As I have a studio overhead when built I ran cable, phone, and ethernet cables as well as an empty 2.5" conduit. Later when I installed a whole house generator I was able to keep the generator next to the garage and connect to the panel by pulling wire through that conduit.

I also have runs of empty conduit running back & forth between the house & garage with connection boxes midway in the lawn. Haven't used them to anything yet but when I want to add power to this amazing outdoor recreation area (yeah, right) it's ready.

Digging makes real MESS, especially where we live what with the rocks, roots etc. But once the trenches are dug, just dropping in some empty conduit for future use could not be easier.

 

[Rob&Deryl]

PVC is cheap. Around here, the phone co and cable folk won’t share a conduit. Verizon required a 3” for the single 6 pair they pulled. Comcast was happy with 2”. One of my runs went to the meter panel where I mounted a motion sensor to chime when someone comes up the drive. I ran 3 circuits to each driveway light. One for the light, two to a duplex on the lower rear of the light post. The lower is always on and the upper is switched for holiday lights at Xmas time.

more IS better