Can you Bury Poly Tubing? (Drip Irrigation Mainline)
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- Опубліковано 3 жов 2024
- Adam walks you through the considerations, drawbacks, and benefits of burying your poly drip irrigation tubing.
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Your videos are exceptional, I hope business is booming!
Thank you for the kind words -- it's Monday over here and this was a great way to start the week -- thank you! :)
Love this company! Quality stuff and very well made videos
Great work Adam! Stay warm out there this winter! Sam out!
Thank you Sam, you stay warm out too, I saw you were out there hunting!
@@dripdepot just harvested another cpl days ago!
I appreciate the concise and informative videos. Great quality, keep up the good work!
Thank you! Great way to start the week for me :)
It looks like you may have edited the question, but happy to answer either way -- I would consider mowing to be light traffic. With a riding lawn mower you might want to bury it at the 8" to 12" instead of the 6" mark, but should be good to go.
Thank you! I did edit after I read through all the comments. I didn’t want to bother you with a question that looked like it was answered further down in the comments. I appreciate the info! Have a great weekend!
Great job Sir.
Thank you truly Paul!
Very useful. We were just debating whether we would have to use pvc here on the farm to underground the irrigation. It keeps getting ripped into by the mower on the surface, and we're about done adding more beds, so now seems like the time.
Lawn mowers are definitely one of the main causes of tubing and pipe damage! Followed by the weed eater :)
I've had good luck with buried tubing in my home garden -- 3 years so far without having to do any repairs. It's inevitable I'll have to at some point, but so far it has stood up as well as harder materials so I'm glad I took the plunge and buried it. I only went about 4 inches to save myself some digging too, you could likely get away with the same.
@@dripdepot Just keep in mind if you aerate, seed slit, or dethatch your lawn, you may want to go 6" to be safer.
Do you have any tips for running a mainline across a hard surface? My hose bib is on the other side of the driveway from where my garden is. Since the driveway is nearly 20 feet wide I'm not keen on trying to bore beneath it. It won't get run over by cars where I intend to run it, I just want to minimize a tripping hazard.
I'd considered those overground cable protectors, which are like a rubber speed bump with a channel inside, but I'm not sure 1/2" main line would fit in one of those.
Great question here, at 20' wide I definitely understand not wanting to bore through!
I think you're absolutely on the right track in considering the speed bump cable protectors (and good on you for thinking about the trip hazard!).
There are quite a few cable protectors out there with wider channels for up to 1" cable that could fit the 0.700" outside diameter 1/2" tubing. I see a few that are referred to as "Extra-Wide Drop-Over Cable Protector Ramp."
Even the wide/extra wide ones might be more than needed, I see quite a few that are an inch tall and wide and that will safely cover the tubing :)
This was a great question and your proposed solution is a good one, thank you!
First off, your videos and website are great. Appreciate your kits. I have raised beds in the center of my grass, would Schedule 80 PVC be best or would you recommend just burying the poly?
Thank you for the kind words!
Either type (Sch 80 or Poly) could get the job done here, so I'd likely weigh some of the pros and cons of each. Are you in an area that regularly drops below freezing? If so, I'd probably lean toward poly, it has much more freeze resistance than PVC. Poly will also be much easier to install.
If the area doesn't drop below freezing (or doesn't by much), Sch 80 buried would probably be a little more durable over time. With that said, poly is much easier to repair, but it's likely there would be fewer repairs overall using Sch 80 (assuming it doesn't drop much below freezing).
Costs are also worth taking a look at, though PVC costs in particular can be a pretty regional thing -- out there at the moment PVC costs more per foot than poly in most places, often by a significant margin.
Essentially, either one can get the job done and done well, but if you drop below freezing frequently or by a good margin, you'd probably have a much better overall experience with poly tubing :)
Note: This of assumes the line will be downstream of any shut-off valves -- if it's a section that would be always under pressure, you'll want to go PVC (it's rated for constant pressure, LDPE tubing is not).
@@dripdepot this helps a ton, thanks
@@kenshapiro1937 Any time, thank you for reaching out!
The builders buried our 1/2 tubing about a foot deep in our clay soil. Has been fun trying to find it 😅
When I'm not looking for buried tubing, my shovel will somehow always find it right away lol -- when I am looking, it's like you said, clay hard to dig soil with no tubing in sight.
Is it connected to a water source? You may be able to locate it by sound while it initially pressurizes :)
@@dripdepot good call didn’t think of that as it is connected to my valve box. I’ll give that a shot when I turn it on this weekend. Thank you
I'm assuming that burying 1/2" mainline for only about a 7'-ish span wouldn't necessitate the air valve, correct? i just need to get from my hose bib to my tree line bed. Then everything would just be above ground/under mulch. I'd only be doing drip rings around 11 arborvitaes.
There's a good chance it wouldn't -- with that low of flow and minor depth, I wouldn't expect a lot of troubles with with air (and you'll likely get air release through the emitters themselves since they'll be at the high point).
That doesn't mean there won't be air problems, but the likelihood is low -- in systems like this I generally start off with no air relief valve and only add one if it ends up being necessary (which is rare and usually only for inordinately long runs of tubing or very high flow emitters).
Your videos are incredibly helpful! I want to bury poly tubing running to my raised beds under gravel. Would running the tubing under the landscape fabric be enough protection from the sharp edges of the gravel, or should I plan on burying it under the soil? Any tips for catching leaks in buried poly tubing?
Thank you for the kind words! =D
I'd likely recommend burying it beneath the soil -- if some foot traffic were to step in the location of the buried tubing while the system was running, I'd worry about the gravel piercing it (it might not happen on the first time, but eventually it would become probable).
Great question on catching leaks in buried tubing, that almost merits its own video -- The first sign will often be some emitters not dripping as they should, as a lot of the water and pressure is being lost to the leak. Often the leak will be audible as well, particularly if it's not buried too deep (6" to 12" is a good depth for poly tubing), you'll hear hissing with a small leak, and actual water flow / gushing for a large leak.
If there are any plants where it's leaking, they'll also respond by growing rapidly (unless very overwatered, then they'll wilt). If it's in a gravelly location, the gravel may become wet, which is fairly easy to spot when surrounded by dry gravel.
I am thinking of starting a fairly small drip irrigation set up with two main areas. My problem is that one of the areas is across a gravel driveway from the water source. Do you have any recommendations for this kind of situation? I was thinking of burying a 1" pvc pipe to act as a protection conduit for the 1/2" poly line under the driveway but I am open to all ideas.
A run of PVC to use as a sleeve is a good solution (and reasonably inexpensive), you're definitely on the right track -- depending on the depth of the gravel, going underneath it with the tubing is also viable. If you're not going to be driving over it, just running the tubing across the top would also work. :)
What would I use underground to create a hose bib/faucet closer to my garden area? My garden is about 170 ft from the hose bib of my house. I'd like to have both drip irrigation in the garden, and a splitter so we can also have a regular hose back there.
To create a hose bib closer to the garden, you'd want a pipe or tubing type that is rated for constant pressure for the run from the house to the new hose bib.
Usually this will be PVC due to cost and availability, but metal pipes and most PEX can be used.
I am wanting to bury the main run from the edge of my garden into the center of 4 raised beds, arranged in a rectangle with 30" walkways around them, then tee left and right which will further split at additional tees to each of the beds. The walkways are fine pea gravel. My concern is with poly tubing being punctured (even with fine gravel) and how well the permalock fittings hold up when buried. Is it OK to bury fittings?
You bet, Perma-Loc fittings can safely be buried -- they are used a lot on large Ag systems where they almost always bury them, so they're built to handle it.
The gravel can definitely be a concern with tubing, I think you're on the right track there -- if it wouldn't disturb the area too much, you can create a bed of soft crumbly soil for the tubing to rest in and top it with that then the gravel. We did some work on a farm for over a week and they had their tubing on a hard packed dirt road strewn with some gravel, and we were driving the truck over that tubing twice a day and it never resulted in damage -- that's not to say it won't get damaged (at some point it definitely will!) but more that it is surprisingly durable.
Note: that's only when not pressurized, if we'd driven over it when the system was running we'd have definitely sprung a leak :)
This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks for all of your great videos! Can you tell me in what situation you might want to use an air vent? Thanks again.
You're very welcome!
Good question on the air vent -- I generally recommend using them only when required due to problems with air. In smaller systems, it's fairly rare that they're needed, even with buried tubing. In larger systems, they're almost always going to be needed, even with above surface tubing.
What size system are you looking at here? If it's on the smaller (residential garden, etc) side, I'd wait to see if I experience any issues with air before including one. Common issues with air are water hammer and air lock (acts like there's a clog in the line). If you're not experiencing these, good chance you won't need one. In a smaller system, air is easily able to escape from high point emitters during start up and water often doesn't have enough velocity to create detrimental hammers when it hits a pocket of air :)
Great info as usual from Drip Depot!! Have been using drip irrigation on my line of trees for three years and they are doing great! However my mainline to them is 1/2 inch and would like to tie into the end of the mainline for another landscaping bed adding an additional 200ft. My GPH is 475 . Total ft of 1/2 inch mainline will be 400ft...too long for that size mainline..my question is..can I tie in with 1 inch at the end of the 1/2 inch to water the added landscape bed . I feel the larger sz tubing will help me maintain the flowrate for the farthest plants. I feel the 1/2 inch wont be able to at 400ft. FYI..i am out of zones running off my timer so i can not create a whole new 1 inch zone for new bed.
Tina, great questions, and they show you're really learning your irrigation, as you're on the right track with everything you mentioned. I'll be happy to assist :)
You do have it right that 400' is going to be too long for a 1/2" mainline, the pressure lost from friction would be pretty steep at that length and flow rate. You wouldn't necessarily have to go to 1", however, as 3/4" mainline is good for up to about 480' and costs a good bit less than 1". 1" might be good if you plan to expand again in the future.
How inconvenient would it be to move your 1/2" for the new area and use 3/4" from your water source to the first area? The reason I ask is that stretch of mainline is going to be handling the bulk of the workload, so 3/4" would probably serve the system best there.
There's one other thing to consider here that you touched on a bit -- the flow rate of the system -- in addition to being limited to about 200', 1/2", it's best to keep the flow rate going through 1/2" to 200 GPH or less -- that's one reason why 3/4" would be best for the start of the system, as that's the location that is going to have the highest amount of flow going through it.
There's also the flow rate of the system versus the flow rate of the water source -- the flow rate of the system is just the sum of all emitters operating at once. A quick example, let's say you're using 500 0.5 GPH drippers, you would have a system flow rate of 250 GPH. You want to make sure the water source will be able to provide enough water to feed the new expansion as well as existing areas. If your GPH is 475 at the hose bib, add up all the emitters you'll be operating at once and make sure it's a bit below that 475 GPH.
How many outlets does your current timer have? If you end up needing to go with another zone, you may be able use one of those little brass fauclet splitters to create a new outlet on your hose bib -- here is an example of one: www.dripdepot.com/brass-hose-y-with-shut-off
I know that's a lot of information, so please don't hesitate to send any follow-up questions this way here in the comments or via our website :)
Wow! Great information! Thank you! I think I will go ahead with the 3/4 mainline directly to my timers 4th outlet with the brass faucet splitter so i can run a regular garden hose off the other side of the splitter.
I have to tell you..I have been so happy with Drip Depots products , shipping and Customer service !! Cant say thank you enough!!
@@tinapinkerton7664 Tina, thank you for the kind words! It's Friday evening and we're wrapping things up, I think this comment is the perfect way to call it a day. Thank you Tina!
Thanks for this! We use drip in our hopyards and we’ve been pulling up the poly header lines along with the drip lines themselves every year…seems like a waste of time anymore.
When in use for the season, we’ve dug very shallow, like 2” deep, just so the equipment can run over without issue.
If we do bury them as directed here…odd question. On the header where we run out a drip line from a valve, would we just bring the header above ground there for the valve, then back under…or should we have some sort of right angle joint to run a small piece of tube up to the service for the valve?
I don’t want to complicate this or reduce pressure by adding joints, if that could happen, just seeking some guidance…thanks much!!
Before I dive in -- even when not buried, it's pretty safe to leave poly tubing out over winter (if that's why you're pulling it up) so long as it's drained. It has great freeze resistance. We even tried to damage some once by filling it 100% full of water and capping off both ends and taking it to the walk-in for a few weeks. No damage (we were hoping for damage for our winterizing video too lol).
The header being above or below surface could go either way depending on what kind of drip lines and header material you're working with (PVC, Oval Hose, Layflat, Poly, etc). We see it go both ways in commercial Ag as well. If the location doesn't get too brutalized by the sun during summer (and it's a material ok with UV exposure) I'm a fan of above-surface as it allows you to quickly spot (and maintenance!) any leaks or blown connections. Those should be very rare, but they do happen and it's nice to be able to spot it ASAP.
I have multiple zones. Is it ok to bury 2 or 3 lines of 1/2 mainline in the same trench? If so, would anything need to be done differently? Do you do anything different for the fittings that are buried to increase odds they won't leak in the future? Thanks
You bet, it's acceptable to bury multiple lines in the same trench (even advised, as it will save some time and labor!) :)
Nothing different needs to be done other than ensuring they're not twisting up with one another -- lay them out in a bed of soft crumbly soil like you would with PVC.
In regards to the fittings, I'd likely use a Loc style or Barbed Insert type fitting with clamps for a sub-surface install -- those two types of fittings use clamps (with Loc style, the clamp is the locking nut that comes with the fitting) and the clamps help keep the tubing secured to the fitting. If you go with a barbed insert fitting, you can use 2 clamps on each side of the fitting when installing sub-surface. That gives a bit of redundancy in case one of the clamps breaks.
Drip irrigation should never be buried. The thin wall material will collapse underground eventually over time and cause issues. When that happens, good luck finding it. The most I've done is 2 niches below the surface, then some dirt but i wont pack it, ill even use large staples to hold it in place. It can be buried under would chips Mulch since there's real no weight to it, but that's it. Most problems with drip are when their under ground from my 15 years of experience.
To some degree this depends on what you're working with -- thicker walled LDPE can safely be buried 6" to 12" -- the thinner walled material like drip tape, I likely wouldn't bury 12" either. In farming and Ag buried thinwall drip tape is more common than not and is referred to as "SDI" or Sub-Surface Drip Irrigation -- their main concern is the efficient use of water and nutrients.
If you'd like to learn more, here is a video made by Netafim (one of the largest drip irrigation manufacturers) discussing the advantages of sub-surface drip irrigation systems using thinwalled tape: ua-cam.com/video/S5S0iqRMBQI/v-deo.html
Interestingly, in that video, they're actually using the drip tape buried quite deep, but they do discuss the common practice of burying shallower, but this was all about researching deeper depth. At around 7:45 they also talk about the difficulty in installing it, but the conclusion is the greater efficiency justifies the costs and difficulty.
That's on professional Ag sized systems of course, on smaller homeowner systems using it above surface is likely more common, particularly with thinwalled solutions, and definitely easier to maintain -- the tubing itself (which is thicker than thinwalled tape by a good degree) can safely be buried 6" to 12" and last for many years :)
@dripdepot I'm very well aware of netafim. Yes, drip is water efficient, but that's not the actual point here. The point is that in my case, thin wall material drip has its issues underground. He even said so in the video. He proved my point. In 1 to 2 years, you'll see the wet spots, and you'll have to find the leak and fix it. For them it is what is, I guess.
@@kart-it-out5975 With thin walled, you'll definitely get leaks at times, particularly if there is any Ag equipment being driven in the area, or heavy foot traffic. For them it's no doubt that water efficiency outweighs the time spent occasionally repairing some of the tape. Essentially I agree that burying thin-wall has its issues, but it's very common and, in some systems, desirable :)