Outside plastic pipe and UV protection - is shade enough?

Joined
22 Apr 2018
Messages
124
Reaction score
3
Country
United Kingdom
Embarking on a deck project soon, so need to lay some cables and pipes for a potential garden room to be built later on at the bottom of our garden, which is 40m long

If we were to have running water in the garden room, can we run a speedfit / hep2o pipe along the party wall?
Our side of the party wall is always in complete shade, however should we best lay the water pipe inside a conduit to guarantee UV protection?

To preempt questions, we will install an internal drain tap + stop cock to empty the pipe run in winter months.
 
You should run it MDPE buried to a minimum depth of 750mm. This will keep the temperature stable, preventing freezing in Winter and preventing it getting warm and developing bacterial growth in Summer
 
Thanks for your reply Muggles.
I am aware of the importance of water mains coming into the house in MDPE pipe at 750mm depth, in fact we replaced the water main from lead to MDPE last summer and done all of the above.

Trenching 750mm in our back garden through hard clay and rocks for a length of 30 to 40m will be quite some considerable effort, so I was trying to find good enough alternative solutions, granted that these would not be going against any regs: is there any that you know of?

If temperature stability is just for comfort then it is not a problem for us, in winter the pipe would be closed off and drained.
Bacterial growth is an interesting one: being in the shade outside though, on those hot sunny days I would imagine it being at a lower temperature than all of the pipes inside the house, where it gets really warm in summer?
 
Anything connected to the mains must comply with the Water Regulations, and if it's intended to be a drinking water supply it should be installed as I've described above. It's also notifiable work. You could always get it moled in rather than trenched - a pit is dug at either end and a mechanical mole draws the pipe thorough the ground.
 
I see, thanks for the clarification and correcting my (mis)understanding!

I'd love to see the mechanical mole in action :D but it sounds like quite a bit of a job, so probably we will end up scrapping the idea and simply bringing a big pitcher down everyday!
 
If you're contemplating running water in there some drainage would be helpful, along with power for the kettle and some lights, maybe even an alarm circuit or some cat5 cable for t'internet?
Hand digging 40m of any trench is dull, any competent groundworks type would have it done in a day if you can get a machine in the back garden. The cost will fade into the background of the rest of the build....
 
Old, you are probably right.
However, our back garden has been a tip for too many yeas and the missus is having a nervous breakdown over it, so it is in the plan to suss it out this spring.
I am sure she wouldn't be too thrilled by having the whole length of it dug out this autumn!

Unless we use the mole-solution suggested by Muggles - which sounds expensive, but could also not be!

About electrics, a sparky should come round this week to have a look at the job, our requirement is to have the cables run in a conduit along said brick wall.
LAN would follow the same.
If sparky says no to the above, then it is reality check time! :censored:
 
Hmm. Prepare for some surprises. On a 40m run, if you want a kettle in the shed you'll be looking at 4mm, maybe 6mm cable. Placcie conduit or ducting clipped to the wall won't really cut it (too fragile), doing it in galvanised will cost a fair bit in labour. LAN cables outside- really want to be either in grounded metal conduit/ducting or run fibre (thunderstorms).
If the garden is a disaster already, get the diggerman to reshape it once the trench is done- scrape the lumps out, dig a pond if you want, whatever, its your ideal opportunity
 
Back
Top