PVC pipe system for water in stalls

[Amateurhour]

Hello! I’m relatively new to COTH but have been working on a new farm and wouldn’t have been able to do it without the input from all of you! From arena construction to paddock footing to barn construction, I have found these forums to be such a wealth of information and so first I wanted to say THANK YOU!

The reason for my first post is that I’m a little stuck on figuring out how to supply water to our stalls (just about to start barn construction). The rocky location of the barn prevents us from digging down deep enough to install Nelson automatic (heated) waters.
Any tips/recommendations for installing a PVC pipe system that runs along the top of stalls, delivering water to each stall individually (I hate long hoses!)? I’m considering doing this but worried about freezing (where we live we get a few weeks of single digits to low teens; occasionally dipping into the negatives at night). Also, would insulated buckets/bucket cozies prevent water from freezing at these temperatures or would heated buckets be necessary? I work full time and am trying to find ways to minimize barn chore time. Thank you so much!

[tangledweb]

If you run pipes above ground, they will absolutely freeze and burst in your winter. It still might be worth doing if you want to use them for 9 months a year then drain them for winter.

[clanter]

use Cross-linked polyethylene tubing, better known as PEX for the overhead… it can withstand some freezing as it will expand without damage

If outside temperatures fall below the 20-degree Fahrenheit threshold that generally causes ice to form in water lines, pipes may freeze. However, PEX offers a potential advantage over rigid plumbing such as copper or hard PVC. Due to its flexibility, PEX has a small margin of expansion under the damaging pressure caused by ice formation. If the weather gets cold enough, PEX pipes can and will freeze like any plumbing. However, PEX may be less likely to rupture as a result of freezing.

https://blackdiamondtoday.com/blog/can-pex-plumbing-freeze

[Miss_Motivation]

We are in southern California, where we don’t have weather, we only have climate and my first year owning a commercial stable we had burst PVC all over the place.

In other words, even only a handful of below-freezing nights a year, and in a large barn with lots of horses in it, the dang things froze.

Pex sure sounds interesting for your purpose. We ended up doing copper pipe which is pricey but has easily withstood our few frozen nights. We did most of this pre-Pex common use, but I’d sure consider it now.

One thing I would add from my now vast experience about how to do things wrong several times before you get it right: install shut off valves up high on each stall’s individual line where horses can’t reach them.

That way, if a horse breaks a pipe somewhere in his house (and they will) your main water line will still be useful and you can isolate/shut off the single line that a horse damaged until it can be repaired.

[Mouse_amp_Bay]

You can use pipes in freezing weather as well. We have metal pipes that run to each stall, with a shut off at each stall allowing you to pour into a bucket. The main water shut off is located by water pump.

In the winter, to water the barn you open main shut off and water all the horses. When done, shut off the main, the. Walk through barn to drain all of the pipes to each stall. This might take an xtra 3 min but it rarely freezes (even when we dip to -30C) and it works very well. Plus you can easily monitor how much each horse is drinking without having to drag a hose around.

[Huntin_Pony]

Another thing to consider - if it gets really HOT in the summer, the pipes will heat up and the water in the stalls will be warm. I had a quick lesson on this in southern CA a few weeks ago when I was visiting there. Ambient close to 100 degrees.

I had to drain the auto waterer and run it until cold water began to come out of the pipes (quite a bit of water) multiple times over two days. I added a bucket in the corner and refreshed it a couple of times as well.

In this particular case, the PVC ran along stall tops in a shed row barn with no pipe insulation and a metal roof. HOT up there!

ETA: Assuming you have good pressure you might be better off to keep pipes lower down even if you can’t get below frost line.

[mvp]

@tangledweb

If you run pipes above ground, they will absolutely freeze and burst in your winter. It still might be worth doing if you want to use them for 9 months a year then drain them for winter.

That’s not strictly true if you drain them. OP, I think you can rig this up if you have the overhead system that seems natural for your application.

[Jim_in_PA]

Please use PEX, not PVC. The latter gets VERY brittle when it ages and gets cold and can be shattered. (The same reason you don’t want to use PVC pipe for jump poles) PEX is flexible and easier to install because there’s no continual gluing of fittings. And “normal humans” can easily use the SharkBite type connectors without special tools to put things together.

[Guilherme]

As long as you have a “low point drain” that will allow any water in the pipes to be drained after buckets are filled you are likely OK. The PEX material that canter mentions is actually very robust in our East TN climate. I have a run to an outdoor faucet that passes though an unheated crawl space and it has withstood temps into single digits (including one period of six days where we had less than 8 hours of above freezing temps; I was impressed). This does mean that you have to “bleed” the pipes of air as they begin to fill when you use it, then monitor your filling, then turn off the flow, then open the low point drain, and the individual fill valves to get all the water out of the line. A PIA to be sure, but maybe better than hauling buckets or rasslin’ hoses?!?!

As to keeping buckets open, options are limited. Using heated buckets is one of them. Insulated buckets will delay freezing. Some folks will float a piece of wood or other material in the bucket to break the surface tension and delay freezing. For large tanks “bubblers” are popular where an air pump puts small amount of air into the water that keeps it moving and delays freezing. This does not mean the water doesn’t actually drop below freezing in temperature, only that freezing is prevented to some degree by the mechanical action of the bubbles.

You don’t note where you are. If you are in Superior, WI your problem is much larger than if you are in East TN. Even South TX or South FL can experience a freeze so any above ground water line needs to be protected (by burying, heating, insulating, made drain-able, etc.).

Contact your Extension office and see what they might have in terms of water system advice.

Good luck in your program.

G.

[2DogsFarm]

If you are a small operation like me (3 horses) no need to spend $$$ to keep buckets unfrozen.
I live in the Land of Polar Vortex - Winter can mean below-zero F degrees for days at a time.

I installed a frostfree hydrant inside my small (36X36 metal polebarn) barn & water from there.
When temps go below 40F the hose comes off & I water Bucket Brigade style.
Stalls have heated buckets with cords running outside stalls & out of reach of horses.
Going on 15yrs with this system & no complaints.
Worst Case was a power outage that lasted 11hrs so I could not use the hydrant w/o the well motor running.
I stocked up on gallons of drinking water from the dollar store & Got 'Er Done.

Of course, if you have more horses YMMV.

[trubandloki]

@2DogsFarm

I installed a frostfree hydrant inside my small (36X36 metal polebarn) barn & water from there.
When temps go below 40F the hose comes off & I water Bucket Brigade style.
Stalls have heated buckets with cords running outside stalls & out of reach of horses.
Going on 15yrs with this system & no complaints.

Three horses at my place too and this is how I do it too.
Heated buckets in each stall and a heated trough outside in the winter sacrifice paddock.
The hose comes out when the trough gets topped off every other day. The hose is then stored inside (in our case the garage is heated to just above freezing). Daily heated bucket filling is done using a couple of buckets. One fills under the non-freeze hydrant while the other is carried to the stall. It does not take long to figure out what flow rate on the hydrant works perfectly to have the next bucket filled when I get back with the empty bucket.

I am not saying I am not happy when summer rolls around and I do not have to deal with the heated buckets and such anymore, but this system works quite well with minimal extra labor.
I guess you just have to decide if having to drain the whole piping system every time you use it is more or less work than carrying some buckets of water for a few months.

I do have to agree with the PEX recommendation. It is not totally break proof or anything but it is much more freeze friendly than anything else.

[Nestor]

My BO put in a PEX system, and then put insulation around the pipes with zip ties and heat tape underneath. They did still freeze last winter, but we only had 3-4 horses in a 16 stall barn so we’re hoping with more warm bodies and more hay, that will be better. Worst comes to worst, we shut it off and drained it during the really cold spells (we had single digit HIGHS for a few weeks), and used an expandable hose to water the horses, that we kept in a bucket in the heated feed room when not in use.

It’s super simple, the PEX pipe just runs along the top of the stalls with a T connector at each stall and some PEX that drops down to a valve with a short hose (3-4’) attached to it to fill buckets with. Super simple, and works great 90% of the year.

You can use insulated buckets or heated ones, my BO (and myself) is paranoid about anything left plugged in so we used insulated bucket covers from SmartPak that worked alright. It works best if you can put some warm/hot water in occasionally.

[jawa]

I installed a PEX system in my barn. I have a barn apartment above, so the main line is within the heated space. It then drops down and runs along the main support beam. A T connection is at the corner of each stall. The PEX runs down from there on the outside of the stall where a valve is placed. Below the valve is a piece of hose that runs into each stall and is affixed so the horse can’t pull it our of the bucket.

The main water line enters the building in the tack room. I have a main valve that allows me to turn the stall water lines off and drain them.

A barn I was in years ago had a very similar system. It was very easy to turn the water on, fill buckets almost full, turn individual water off. Go to the tack room, close valve for stall water, return to stalls and open each line. It was very easy to do for 6 horses.

[DMK]

I was in a barn that had the set up you are talking about - spigot with short hose by every stall, pipes along the front top of the stall - the pipes came down in the wall and there was a cabinet built into the wall for each spigot/hose with doors opening into the stall and aisle. In the sense that you never had to drag a hose down the aisle, it was great, aisle always looked neat and tidy, filling buckets was a breeze (each stall had a run in behind it so emptying buckets was easy too).

But even here in Atlanta, we had to turn off the water a few nights a year, open up the drain (the barn was at the top of the hill so gravity worked for us), open all the spigots and clear the pipes or it was going to be a flood zone. And there were absolutely a few times over the years where we had to keep the water off for several days. But there was also a frost free pump in the barn so we used that during those times, so best of both worlds!

(I can’t speak for pipe construction, but given owners had a construction company, I’m assuming PEX)

[Inese]

@Amateurhour

Hello! I’m relatively new to COTH but have been working on a new farm

The reason for my first post is that I’m a little stuck on figuring out how to supply water to our stalls

Thank you so much!

The commercial boarding barn I use has a very nice setup. The plastic pipes run on the outside of each stall, with an individual on/off valve and rubber hose running down into a bucket hung inside each stall, with a small hole for the rubber extension hose to go through the wood stall wall.

Total of 50 stalls, with 35 to 40 horses year round. We live in Northern Illinois, and survive the -20 degree winter days pretty well.

The barn’s water supply is a deep well, which pumps water into two gas-fired hot water heaters. The continuous water (pipe) circulation pattern means horses get ‘tepid’ water in the winter - not cold water straight out of the ground. The water heaters are turned off and drained each Spring, so summer hot weather water is nice and cool.

The barn is insulated, but not heated. The horse bodies keep the main barn pretty much at 35 to 40 degrees on winter days, when the aisle doors are closed. A hard cold spell will mean a thin layer of ice in some buckets, which is fished out using a kitchen strainer if necessary. I have boarded there 7++ years and have NEVER seen the plastic water lines freeze.

The buckets are scrubbed regularly by the working students, and anyone (parent, student, friend, helper, non-horse person) can water the horses by standing in the aisle outside each stall to turn on the water valve. No hoses needed - the younger girls DO need a step stool to reach each water valve.

PM for BO’s contact info, if you like.

[DoubleDown]

@Nestor

It’s super simple, the PEX pipe just runs along the top of the stalls with a T connector at each stall and some PEX that drops down to a valve with a short hose (3-4’) attached to it to fill buckets with. Super simple, and works great 90% of the year.
.

This is pretty much what I did! Although I’m still trying to find a better arrangement since my doors slide, they catch on the connection. It’s fine if I remember to just lift the hose up an inch to get out of the way of the roller. But I have to remember…:o
Picture attached if you look past his big head on the right. I have PEX, if cold weather is coming, I drain the line & shut it off. I’m in Oregon, and we only have a few nights that get cold enough to freeze. I did put insulation around the lines after this picture was taken. I did freeze it twice, where the first stall by the main door wouldn’t come on, but I just went to a stall further on which hadn’t frozen, got the water flowing, and it was fine for the first stall. Just took maybe a few seconds.

Overall, I love not having hoses to drag around! OH- I would use a twisty handle, not the lever at the stall, I’ve had my barn flooded twice now from him turning the water on. Again, until I replace the handle, I just remember to shut the main off. It’s right by the door so super easy to get to.

[Amateurhour]

Thank you so much for all of your input! Sounds like PEX or metal it is (I hadn’t heard of PEX before this, so very helpful!). I live in Eastern WA, so it can definitely get pretty cold and it sounds like it may not work year round. We will have 4-5 horses in the barn so it would be possible to bucket brigade it if needed, just trying to avoid doing that too regularly. Good idea to put a twisty handle instead of a lever. Thanks again for the responses!

[Ghazzu]

@Amateurhour

Hello! I’m relatively new to COTH but have been working on a new farm and wouldn’t have been able to do it without the input from all of you! From arena construction to paddock footing to barn construction, I have found these forums to be such a wealth of information and so first I wanted to say THANK YOU!

The reason for my first post is that I’m a little stuck on figuring out how to supply water to our stalls (just about to start barn construction). The rocky location of the barn prevents us from digging down deep enough to install Nelson automatic (heated) waters.
Any tips/recommendations for installing a PVC pipe system that runs along the top of stalls, delivering water to each stall individually (I hate long hoses!)? I’m considering doing this but worried about freezing (where we live we get a few weeks of single digits to low teens; occasionally dipping into the negatives at night). Also, would insulated buckets/bucket cozies prevent water from freezing at these temperatures or would heated buckets be necessary? I work full time and am trying to find ways to minimize barn chore time. Thank you so much!

If you run the pipe above the stalls, and put a T-intersection in front of each stall with a shutoff for each one on the downward portion of the T. Attach a cutoff piece of hose on each of these downard portions that can be directed into the water bucket in each stall. Put a pitch on the main pipe from one end of the barn to the other, so that the far end is lower than the near. And a shutoff at the end closest to your water source.
Then in cold weather, you shut off the main valve, and open the taps in front of each stall, letting the water in the pipe drain into each bucket.
Had this setup in a barn I managed in MA many years ago, and if you remembered to drain it after watering, it never froze.

[Highflyer]

I worked at a barn with this and would never in a million years put it in. It was constantly getting broken or accidentally turned on, always at the worst possible times.

[skydy]

@Amateurhour

Thank you so much for all of your input! Sounds like PEX or metal it is (I hadn’t heard of PEX before this, so very helpful!). I live in Eastern WA, so it can definitely get pretty cold and it sounds like it may not work year round. We will have 4-5 horses in the barn so it would be possible to bucket brigade it if needed, just trying to avoid doing that too regularly. Good idea to put a twisty handle instead of a lever. Thanks again for the responses!

I had a pony who was a master at turning the twisty handle and causing a flood. Just so you know, some can do it. :yes: