Ideas for how to bury a garden hose/improve water access

12 years ago

The idiot developer who built our house put the outdoor water faucet on the side of the house without much lawn, rendering it impossible to water the majority of the front lawn without the hose going over the front walkway (about 2 feet wide of concrete) and 3 feet tall bushes. The man of the house had ideas of running a PVC pipe underneath the walkway and threading a hose through it, which sounds difficult to execute.

Does anyone have any DIY ideas to either dig a small tunnel beneath a concrete walkway, or some other sparky idea to get water to the front lawn in a discrete manner?

Thanks.

Comments (4)

twolips
12 years ago
Google "tunneling under a sidewalk". I think you can do it using your hose and water pressure. Would probably take some doing, but it can be done.
lehua49
12 years ago
e,

A two foot sidewalk would be an easy DIY job. The idea of an irrigation line in a sleeve is a good one in case you have to replace the line at a later date. Also make the sleeve a 2" pvc pipe or bigger so that you can slide controller wire through as well as your pipe. The details are that you have to dig a good size hole on one side. The method can be dry or wet. They make a special nozzle for digging and flushing on a metal pipe and you have a second person to de-water the hole while you are digging under the walkway. The second method should work the best and that is to use a heavy short pole oor pry bar and chisel out the dirt under the side walk. It is like digging a post hole but sideways. 2 feet is not far to do this and less messy. Make sure the pvc sleeve extends past the sidewalk a couple inches. If you want to be more structural sound, you duct tape the ends and plug both ends with an opening spout on one side that you can pour runny grout and it will flow around the sleeve and solidify in a few hours. There you have it, a crossing under your sidewalk. Aloha
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enmnm (6b)
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks so much for your help. I googled and found tons of information. My only drawback is that one side of the walkway is lined with bushes, and the other is heavy with tree roots, which makes it difficult to dig a perpendicular trench.

I am such a geek, I feel so motivated solve this problem. :)
lehua49
12 years ago
e,

Nothing is impossible and it is a matter of how difficult you perceive the problem. It is all about effort and time or paying for someone else's effort or time. 3' high bushes can be dug up and and replanted fairly easily. Tree roots can be pruned back and probably should be if a sidewalk is near your trees(you won't kill the tree with minor pruning(its done on Bonsai Trees all the time)). You would have this problem routing your irrigation line. There are root barriers placed along sidewalks that keep tree and bush roots from going under the sidewalks and uplifting them. JMHO Aloha