Montana wrote:
Farmerman
The cabin would be as close to the septic as the house is, but I'll ask all the questions before to make sure it can be done. I can't tap into the well because it's a small well.
This house was built in 1988 and is 3 times the size of the house that was here before and they kept the well the same size as it was, so the water pressure we have now isn't even the best.
If I can't tap into the septic, I'll be a bit bummed because it'll cost me a small fortune to have a new septic put in and I probably won't be able to build where I had planned.
Here's my two cents worth, Montana. Farmerman makes a good point about the septic, but even without slope {and if it's allowed by the province's septic department], you could put in a small holding tank and pump the effluent to the existing septic tank.
BUT, CAVEAT COMING; you say that the existing house has grown BUT the septic system has not. It may already be undersized, field wise. Tank size isn't super crucial but if you don't have enough drainage field area, you may just tip the balance to a clogged main field.
Field area is normally determined by # of bedrooms but that can be a bit misleading. Even if there were ten bedrooms but only a couple of people living there, the relationship is really "people load" to field area size.
Next, the well. Adding a part time house to the scenario won't make any difference to the well. Your water pressure VERY likely has nothing to do with the capacity of the well. Water pressure has a lot to do with pipe size, pipe type and the age of the pipe.
You could also have an undersized pressure tank or a pressure tank set at too low a pressure.
A low producing well can be offset by installing a smallish storage tank, the size would be about "average daily water consumption". This tank would trickle fill during off hours, thereby "increasing" your well production.
RE: water for the new place. I'd have a line dug into a central area of the new house, as far from the outside walls as possible. This line should come in underground a few feet below your area's normal frost depth as it's determined to be for footings.
For example, if the frost depth for your area of N.B. is 4 feet, then you should dig the water line in at about 8 feet down.
This pipe, should be copper, has to come in at the full depth, 8 feet, to the central location. At this central location, you add a frost proof hydrant, similar to the ones farmers use. All plumbing lines would be fed from the hydrant feed but when it's shut off in the winter, the line drains back down to 8 feet. At the base of this hydrant, a small gravel bed is put around to help aid the drain down.
The plumbing could be arranged so that you'd open both water taps at the highest level, OR have an airvent installed at the high point and all the plumbing would self drain. Because, it's a hydrant, the next time you warmed the house up with a woodstove, you could turn the water back on.
