"digitalmaster" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ups.com...
Please pardon this multiple newsgroup article. I do not know which
newsgroup would be the most-correct. I hang out in talk.origins mostly,
so I do not know which hard-science venue would be appropreate for my
query. Hydrodynamics does not seem to be represented in the newsgroup
list as far as I can tell.

I live and work on a cattle ranch. (Moooo!) We have a fresh-water
spring on the side of a hill that produces about ten gallons (38
liters) of water per minute. We want to go up the hill and dig a hole
and bury a 55-gallon (208 liter) drum as a collection box and pipe the
spring water into the top of the drum; we then want to run a pipe from
the bottom of the drum and down the hill into a cabin. (There will also
be an over-flow fitting at the top of the drum, but that is not part of
my query.)

At the cabin we hope to get around 43 PSI, or about 100 head feet, of
water pressure. We plan on using pipe with an inner diameter of 1.5
inches or perhaps 1.0 inches. We do not want to use a water meter /
pressure regulator.

The hill's decline is about 20 degrees, but I do not know if that is
important to know. As far as I know, what is important is the height of
the water source above the water demand (the "head").

My query is:

1) how high up the hill should the collecting drum be?

Keep the drum as near to the borehole as possible.

It may be worth your while making the drum bigger, or multiple drums, for a
large water store. Then keep the borehols as small as possible to avoid
losing water. If it gushes away you may dry up the water source at certain
times of the year. Only you can actually know this being local to it.

2) is there a danger of too much pressure if the collecting drum is too
high up the hill?

Not at 3 bar there isn't.

3) is a pressure regulator at the cabin necessary?

At about 3 bar (30 foot vertically is approx 1 bar) you don't have great
pressure. My house is 4.5 bar from the mains with no pressure reducer. 3
bar will give a nice shower too.

to help with water hammer you can install a small bladder type tank right
before the pipe goes in the house...to help take up the shock when a valve
is closed.

It is called a shock arrestor. It can be the size of a tennis ball. Water
hammer tends to be when taps are turned off sharply, like having lever
handles. Water hammer may not be a problem as any shocks may work their way
back up the supply pipe.

Or another way is to put a tee in the
line then run a vertical pipe up a few feet and cap it...the trapped air
will act as a "shock absorber" when valves are closed.

The air pocket will eventually disappear, so best get the proper fitting.