Here’s my latest dilemma. I’m developing a little recreation area for the family down on the farm, about an hours drive from my home. I have about 1/2 acre cleared in the woods along a small spring-fed creek. No electricity, no water well. I’ve set out some willows, azaleas, and dogwood trees. This is an especially pristine place in rural south Georgia.
I need to be able to water my small investment in landscaping, and my windmill is over 1,000 yards away, and across a paved road. I want some sort of hand pump to draw water from the creek to the landing. The level of the creek rises and falls dramatically with the drought / wet cycles, but I have about 10 feet of elevation to contend with. Lehman’s has a polypropylene hand-cranked type pump ($100) that’s good for 25 gallons per minute. It is supposed to lift water 7 feet, which really would limit me on where I could place it, knowing it would have to be about waist high for me to turn the handle.
A pitcher-type hand pump would work, and I could do a more permanent installation, but how much lift could I expect ? I could trench in a draw pipe and leave it in the water. This is a VERY undeveloped stretch of water. A hydraulic ram pump requires a certain amount of fall; my creek and land are nearly dead-level. There’s no fall to take advantage of.
My other thought is of a generator and 120 v. water pump, but I’d rather keep it simple. The creek over runs it’s banks every three or four years, about knee-deep, for a few days. We’re in the fourth year of severe drought, so that’s certainly not a problem right now. When I build the cabin back there, it’ll have to be on pilings.
Thanks for your thoughts. Greg.
Replies
Have you considered a well. If the vertical distance is only 10 feet, I'd expect to find ground water at a similar depth.
A hand pump will easily lift 10 feet. The problem with putting the pump at the creek is that in addition to the lift, you have friction loss in the horizontal distance.
I like the well idea too (sometimes I drill 6 in a day). But it is more expensive. If the water course is flat and the terrain surround it is pretty flat, then the well will have water 10 feet down. If it is clean sands or gravel then you'll be able to pump out of the well without drawing down the level too much (a foot or two). But if there are clays or silts present, you might need a long screened interval (tens of feet) and a lot of drawdown (like 10 feet) to get several gpm. One nice thing about a pond is that you can get whatever gpm out of it you want.
The 120-volt generator and pump is one option. There are also 12-volt sump pumps for pretty good flow at moderate pressure (total head about 20-25 feet) - just submerge it in a 5-gallon bucket with some holes drilled in it.
There are also 12-volt submersible pumps for about $80, I think. Real Goods has them. Someone else probably has them cheaper.
If you look at a non-submersible pump note what the "dry-lift" capacity is. All pumps have better "wet-lift" once primed and maybe you could get it primed down by the water and then drag it uphill but that seems like a pain. Very good pumps (e.g. on a fire engine have dry-lifts exceeding 25 feet. Wet-lift can never exceed 32 feet and less at altitude.
The cheapest suction hose is PVC pipe. Flexible suction hoses can be convenient but tend to cost a lot.
David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
I have no idea how well this works but your situation seems a perfect place to try it;
There has several times been articles in publicationbs like Mother Earth News, Backwoods Home, etc of a surge pump which powers itself by the force of the water from the stream entering it. Kind of like it burps a percentage of the water up your line. I'm not a plumber so I can't explain it but you try to research that line of thought.
No moving parts or power required.
You said simple, and I can't think of a better way to ruin your enjoyment of pristine woods than to spend an hour every day cranking a hand pump so this idea sounds right to me. Maaybe somebdy else has links to it - I'm betting there's a plan for how to build it online somewhere.
Hey, Piffin !
You're right, Mother Earth ran a home-made Hydraulic Ram Pump in May/
June 1979. A hydraulic ram is about as close as you can come to a perpetual motion machine. But you have to have at least 18 inches of fall - water has to rush down a drive pipe to start the check valve's
stroking mechanism. I just don't think it will help me in this particular application.
I'm in big farming country, and the local well drillers are accustomed to 10 inch and even 12 inch irrigation wells (center pivot irrigation rigs pump about 1200 gallons per minute !) The smallest
well they're set up for is 4", and this would probably cost me $1,000, even without a pump. It's kind of like ordering a yard of concrete - they charge more for the aggravation than the product.
Does anyone have any experience with a driven well ? This is a well
that is not drilled or dug, it utilizes a cast iron well point and a section of filter pipe that is driven into the ground with a sledge hammer or weighted drive pipe. As you drive it into the ground, you attach additional sections of pipe until you hit water. My creek bank is mostly porous limestone which is fairly soft, but I don't know how much luck I would have.
If only my windmill were nearer. But then I would have to cut lots of trees to get the wind where I needed it.
Thanks for the suggestions. Greg.
Is this the type of pump you guys were talking about?
http://www.theramcompany.com/
Avoid alliteration...always.
Anyone ever tried one of those cheap hand-drill driven pumps? This wouldn't give you much GPM, but if you're just looking for temp way to water some trees each weekend, I'ts better than hauling buckets. 10' lift might be a stretch for it, but maybe if it's pre-primed, it could do it?
Otherwise I like Dave's idea about the 12V pumps. Get your vehicle hooked up to it and let it run. You could even fill a cattle water tank and hook some drip irrigation up to it so you'll get constant watering for several days after pumping.
I have a fair bit of experience with driven wells having installed a 80 or so at dozens of sites. The manufacturer's literature would lead you to believe that you can drill well down to 25 or 30 feet but that is not true.
The best we have ever done is a bit more than 15 feet and was while standing on top of the truck with a jackhammer and/or bopping the casing on top with a front loader bucket!. Doing it by hand, 5 to 10" is typical IN DECENT SOILS. Limestone (even if soft) doesn't count as soil.
If there was soil, not soft rock, a hand operated auger (like for fence posts) is a possibility if you can rent extensions for it. But in rock, you need a carbide-tipped bit like the well drillers have.
I have seen narrow holes excavated to 6 to 8 feet with a small jackhammer with long, custom tip on it and the cuttings sucked up with a big shop vac. This was done to definitely locate utility conduits, but one could go deeper. Would seem to be limited only by your tool's length ("size does matter"), your endurance, and your Advil supply.
I'm thinking a sump pump in a bucket in the pond. 12-volt or 120-volt, your choice. If you need to move the water any distance, get some 1" schedule 40 PVC. It is MUCH less resistive to flow than 5/8" garden hose. Then, at the end of the line, run a few 5/8" garden hoses to the individual trees to be watered.
Horse toughs are cheap water storage in terms of $/gallon. If you get a big pump and place the storage tank uphill, you could minimize the time that you are running the generator. You might be able to use a battery-operated sprinkler timer to water the trees again a few days after you leave and save yourself a trip out there.
David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
Thanks very much, Dave. The voice of experience is heard above all others. I'll let you know how it turns out. I was hoping for a solution with little expenditure of time. In the meantime, I'll be luggng the 5 gallon buckets. Hey, that's why I have a 12 year-old ! Timewise, I've still got to erect the windmill, (Aermotor, circa 1932, 45 foot tower) find out where the diesel fuel is leaking on the tractor, put up about 1/4 mile of four-strand barbed wire fence, remove the sod so that I can place the concrete for my 24 x 36 shop, and on and on and on.
I may venture into the hardware store and pick up a little pipe and a drive point and filter - our land is very sandy and post holes are a breeze with hand diggers. I might just get lucky and find a spot away from the limestone. You actually have to look around to find a real rock, so maybe I stand a chance.
Thanks for your thoughts. Greg.
12 volt pump and a solar panel and a car battery. simple affordable and as complex as a stone.
I'm afraid I missed why you just don't consider a small gasoline powered pump. May not be environmentally correct, but would be cheaper than the generator/electric pump solution. I bought a 2.5hp Honda pump for around $200. It is rated for about 70 gpm, I think.
Low voltage DC deep well pumps are really pricey, but for pumping under about 20' you should be able to get by with something much less expensive. However, a reliable pump in the 4gpm might still run you over $100. And you need at least a 120 watt solar panel which will cost you several hundred $. And to be safe, you should have a regulator to turn the pump off when the voltage is too low, another hundred or more. There are some outfits on the web that will sell you a nice 4gpm solar pond pump setup for $799 or so... Do a search on "dc well pumps" and "solar panels", or "solar well pump" and you'll find out they aren't giving this stuff away.
Seems to me the old Egyptians used a bucket on a long pole riding on a pivot, maybe you could cut one of your trees and use it light that...
I've what Casey suggested at my cabin, old lawnmower engine and $10 garage sale leather cup positive displacement piston pump (old sears unit) - pumps 2-3 gpm 80 feet uphill. If you think its ever going to freeze, make sure you drain it, had to weld mine up twice when I neglected to do drain it before winter. Maybe you could hook up an old bicycle & sprocket vs. an engine?
What David says about driving a well is absolutely true, a few feet on a 2" pipe is all even with 500# dropped 4 feet once a second!. Good education in how pilings are so effective as supports. I've seen 4 foot dia power transmission tower foundations driven 10 ft deep, takes a day with a few hundred ton machine.
From DIY experience, I can tell you that the least overall effort is the holey bucket, next best , for a 10 ft deep well is to dig it with a posthole digger and shovel and bucket and big (3 ft) sewer tile to protect yourself from cave-in. I've hand dug(18 ft) and hand built cable tool (4 months to go 60 feet**), auger (sheared off output shaft of 2 ton IH tranny when basalt boulder hit), and jet (once in pure sand with 500 gpm pump, wow, over 2 cu yard of sand spewed out in an hour, but would go >10 years against a basalt boulder)* drilling rigs to get to 60 feet in glacial till, hardpan and boulders. For only 10 feet dig it. (spent 2 day drilling 6" hole thru 2 ft. thick basalt boulder!) (Betcha WORD would sure spit out that last sentence for grammar and parenthesis<G>)
* but if you had a 500 gpm pump, you wouldn't be asking? I used a 3" $39 Harbour freight pump mounted to an '84 Chrysler 2.2L engine, pump worked fine, but smoked 2 v-belts trying to push it over 500 gpm.
**includes building 22 ft tower, pitman, bit, bailer, etc., weekends only.
Casey is quite right that a gasoline-powered pump is a great option. Leaves out the generator and electric motor of the gas generator/electric pump option. I got a new, 1 hp, plastic-bodied pump for $80. It's worked fine in light use and is nice to have around as a potential booster pump to the city water. I've seen 2,000 homes on fire at the same time (in the Oakland Hills) and, in those situations, there's not much pressure coming from the city.
JunkHound (a good handle for you): I want to hear about this hand-built cable tool. Almost all my wells have been with hollow-stem auger (environmental work), but the best driller I ever met like cable-tool for its versatility even if it does go slow. Your thoughts?
David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
David:
I'll start a new thread on well drilling.
First tried an auger as you suggested last year, that's when I broke the IH tranamission.
Hey all
The 12v pump is a great way to go. Here in the Virgin Is. we have cisterns that hold rainwater. Anyhow I have used Shurflo's pressure pump with great successs. It will cut off by itself and could water with a timer set-up. The problem with them is intake cleanliness, Use West Marine's intake filter on the suction side and have a bucket to collect in the stream with screen around it. They use very little energy 5-7 amps @12v. I have one that runs off my truck and with a 55 gal drum can pump water all around a jobsite.