Here in the next month (hopefully!) I will have the basement walls formed and poured for my house, and I want to bring water from the well into the house. Unfortunately after looking at the materials list on my well papers...I am not sure if they used 1" 1 1/4" or 2" SCH 80 PVC from the tank to my frostless hydrant and capped off line. I will find out when I dig down to the capped PVC line. A couple things I am wondering about...The well will only be 30' from the house entry point.
1.) Will 1" or 1 1/4" Poly (NSF Rated @ 160PSI) be the best idea? Is there a specific type of PVC to Poly adapter to use?

and 2.) What is the most fullproof method (so water doesn't leak around the entry) in terms of bringing it (poly pipe) into the basement through the concrete wall? A PVC Sleeve sized bigger than the poly prior to pouring the wall, or drilling through the concrete wall after it has set?

 

Curious question. Why wasn't there a provision made for water entry when either the floor or walls were poured? There should be a below grade entry point which will be sleeved and allow entry of your supply line. It should be sealed from the outside prior to backfill. For such a short run, I would guess they ran a 1" line. If your local authority will allow poly, it is fine to use for entry piping. There is a barb-to-IPF fitting that you can use to couple the poly to the PVC or PEX if you want. You will be dropping the size down to 3/4" anyway.

 

Hey Chandler,
I have not yet done the basement pour. I am going to hopefully in the next few weeks which is why I want to decide how I will be bringing the water into my house from the well. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that in the original post.

You say sleeved entry point, so I am thinking just one size larger of PVC pipe that is 8" long to fit in the concrete forms prior to pouring. Same thing for electrical, then?

It is a short run, once I know the dimension of pipe I wasn't sure if it was critical to say the same size, and/or reducing to a certain size that would be 'plenty large' for the household anyway.

 

CTS I’m no expert but I believe the plumbing code requires the sleeve to be 2 pipe sizes larger. I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s done. Here is a paragraph I found but I have an International Plumbing Code book somewhere (lol) that says the same thing:

From Section 305.5 in the 2006 IPC & P2603.5 in the 2006 IRC:

 

Okay thanks. And what is the suggested product to fill around the pipe...surely not silicon?

Is there a link one of you can provide that has that PVC to Poly Tubing adapter to get an idea of how it works and what it looks like?

 

I think there are a few different ways to do it but I heard the expansion foam Great Stuff can be used – and that’s what I used to fill the gap between the pipe and the sleeve. It's been about 8 years since I did the job and I don't see any problems - so far (lol).


I think this is the kind of fitting chandler is talking about – but I’m no expert. (I had to convert from poly to copper so in my case I used a brass fitting: barb x MIP). The spigot end of the pictured fitting goes into the PVC pipe and obviously the barb end gets pushed into the poly pipe. Maybe one of the other guys will verify this, but I’m pretty sure that’s what you would use.


Spears PVC Pipe Fitting, Adapter, Schedule 40, White, Barbed x Spigot: Industrial Pipe Fittings: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

 

Ah fair enough.
So does that expandable foam make a water/airtight bond even though it's in PVC and against a plastic poly water pipe? (I figured foam would not bond to that and could work loose).

I appreciate the info and link! -- Yikes though, so you're saying we rely on essentually a hose clamp (I'd use at least 3 if I can get them on there going opposite directions) to make the conversion over to poly? I suppose there is no way around a barbed fitting unless the hose has a molded plastic PVC adapter...

 

When I started my job I was wondering about the same thing – how do you make the space waterproof between the sleeve and the pipe inside the sleeve, and I know Great Stuff is not waterproof. Well if I understand correctly you don’t need to make it waterproof because you shouldn’t have water on the outside wall to worry about in the first place. If so then some other problem needs fixing. At least that’s the way it was explained to me (somewhere, lol). So I just filled it with Great Stuff and I really haven’t seen any problems. This whole business about needing a sleeve so the pipe isn’t abraded over time seems nutty to me. I would think it would take centuries for that to happen – lol.

Maybe there is some other reason for the sleeve?

I think the barb connection is really very tight. In fact when I tried to push the brass barb into the black poly pipe I was shocked – no way was that going to go in. Way too tight. But if you heat up the poly pipe it is amazing what a difference that makes and you can slip the barb into the pipe. But it is really tight. And with 2 band clamps on it no way is that coming apart. I can’t remember whether I used a heat gun or a torch. But I think I did use the propane torch and anyway I made sure I stayed pretty far away – just close enough to soften the poly just enough to get the barb in, but no closer. Seemed like I did no damage to the pipe.

I read you can also heat the black poly with hot water, but I had no luck with that. I just got wet-lol. In my well pit I had to push the black poly on a plastic 90 degree elbow barb end and I haven’t had any problems with that. I don’t remember if that was easier to push in than the brass barb or not.