Running holt and cold supplies to a garden outbuilding...

[JDLDIY]

Hi there. I'd originally posted this in the Garden forum, but actually I think this might be the better place for it, apologies to anyone who's had to read this twice!

I need to run hot and cold water supplies to an outbuilding and also to either end of my garden. What's the best way to go about this? I'm guessing I'll need to use blue plastic water pipe (I need to replace the house's lead supply pipe anyway), but how deep should I lay it, how should I protect it, etc, etc. The research I've already done suggests burying the pipes at least 750mm deep and on a bed of builders sand, but I'm not sure about insulation - obviously the better they are insulated the better the supply, especially of hot water. I would think I'll have to make joins in the pipes to cover the distance involved, how am I best to do that - should I install inspection covers wherever I have joins?

Many thanks for any advice.

 

[sircerebus666]

Why hot?

What's distances are you talking about here?

 

[Tigercubrider]

You will need to supply electricity, presumably?
Just run cold and have an instantaneous heater for hot water.
A girlfriend lived in an old coach house over a stable.
her shower was electric, and one small heater in the bathroom, about the size of an older PC heated the kitchen and bathroom basins

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Cold at 750mm deep, that depth is specified as frost wont penetrate that deep, so pipe will never freeze. As said, what distance are you looking at? May not be practical to run hot water, you will waste gallons of water running the tap waiting for hot water to arrive, then once finished, the slug of hot left in the pipe will soon go cold again, then repeating the process. Look at a small instantaneous water heater instead.

Joints, if done properly using proprietary fitting, will be as likely to leak as the pipe itself. Test if you prefer before backfilling, but should be ok.