Tapping into sewer & Water lines of our home. Help!

We have a 16x20 shop in our backyard, that we are turning into a salon for my wife, so we need a sink with running water and possibly a small bathroom install as well. There is no existing plumbing going in yet. We are about 15 feet from the sewer clear out's and about 20 feet (approx) from the underground water supply. Our home is 5 years old, and I believe all piping is PVC.

We need to tap into the sewer and the water lines. I have some basic plumbing skills, but want to know if anyone can explain the process to me better. I am planning to dig trenches to bring the piping over to the shop. If anyone can take some time to help describe the process to me, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Dexter

Simplistically, it needs to run downhill, so where you tap into it and the actual elevations of the new salon and the existing drain will dictate if it can be done at all. Figure 1/4" per foot. To do a toilet in the building, you'll need probably 7-8" (more is nice) from the floor level to be the starting point of the downhill run. You want to avoid turns. You should probably consider 4" pipe underground, but needs to be at least 3" for a toilet. That would depend somewhat on the size of the pipe you will be connecting to; you can't go from a bigger pipe to a smaller one downstream...you can only go the same size or bigger.

If the connection is directly to the sewer, you usually need a licensed sewer plumber to do that. If it is to your line running to the sewer, you may be able to do that yourself.