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Old house, c1915, water line at some point was converted to 3/4" copper from galvanized. At least copper is what is coming into the house and what the water dept shows being at the meter.
Here's the deal, the area the copper comes in was an area of dirt crawlspace, which has since been dug out and a block retaining wall installed about 2' in from the original foundation wall. Original footing is only about a foot deep and the space between footing and new wall hasn't been capped with concrete, which I'm getting ready to do. In anticipation of having any future waterline issues I installed a 3" PVC chase very close to where the current line enters the house and I terminated this chase on the exterior side of my foundation and it's down the required 3' to compensate for frost.
What I'm wondering is, would it be a bad idea to get some 3/4" copper that is somewhat flexible, I'm open to other materials as well, and cut the copper off outside prior to the point it would enter the chase and re-route the water line into the chase prior to capping this area with concrete? This way it's where it needs to be and is 'finished', if it ever needs replaced it would be a fairly easy swap.
What I'd really love to go back to the meter and run 1-1/4" poly pipe the entire length, but not sure I'm ready to tackle that task at this time. City says I can do that work if I want, of course I need a permit, but I don't really want to dig up my yard with summer coming. I can't easily rent a trencher as I have an ornamental tree, which I can hand dig under and I also have irrigation lines that I'd slice up. Total distance to meter is only about 25' of nicely irrigated yard, so hand dig isn't that bad.
I also inquired about slowly extending the chase to the meter that way when it's all said and done it'd never have to be dug up again if there was ever a problem. Inspector said he'd never come across that, but I was welcome to do so and if I did the chase in stages he'd accept pictures to show depth of trench and chase. I realize that's way overkill, BUT it would allow me NOT to have to dig the entire yard up at once and thus I could install 5-10' at a time if need be. I figure total cost of 3" PVC chase would be less than $50 so not a huge expense.
Thoughts on the chase or even just cutting the existing off outside the foundation wall and re-routing it into the chase for now?
Here's the deal, the area the copper comes in was an area of dirt crawlspace, which has since been dug out and a block retaining wall installed about 2' in from the original foundation wall. Original footing is only about a foot deep and the space between footing and new wall hasn't been capped with concrete, which I'm getting ready to do. In anticipation of having any future waterline issues I installed a 3" PVC chase very close to where the current line enters the house and I terminated this chase on the exterior side of my foundation and it's down the required 3' to compensate for frost.
What I'm wondering is, would it be a bad idea to get some 3/4" copper that is somewhat flexible, I'm open to other materials as well, and cut the copper off outside prior to the point it would enter the chase and re-route the water line into the chase prior to capping this area with concrete? This way it's where it needs to be and is 'finished', if it ever needs replaced it would be a fairly easy swap.
What I'd really love to go back to the meter and run 1-1/4" poly pipe the entire length, but not sure I'm ready to tackle that task at this time. City says I can do that work if I want, of course I need a permit, but I don't really want to dig up my yard with summer coming. I can't easily rent a trencher as I have an ornamental tree, which I can hand dig under and I also have irrigation lines that I'd slice up. Total distance to meter is only about 25' of nicely irrigated yard, so hand dig isn't that bad.
I also inquired about slowly extending the chase to the meter that way when it's all said and done it'd never have to be dug up again if there was ever a problem. Inspector said he'd never come across that, but I was welcome to do so and if I did the chase in stages he'd accept pictures to show depth of trench and chase. I realize that's way overkill, BUT it would allow me NOT to have to dig the entire yard up at once and thus I could install 5-10' at a time if need be. I figure total cost of 3" PVC chase would be less than $50 so not a huge expense.
Thoughts on the chase or even just cutting the existing off outside the foundation wall and re-routing it into the chase for now?
