Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Pumps -- a quick question

I do not have an immediate need, but I'm just thinking.

If I have a water well that never seems to run dry and it's . . . we'll say 60-70 feet vertical from the house and across 300 feet of field, and I want to fill a cistern at the house from the well, I should be able to get a well pump that has 150 feet of head, delivering 3-4 gpm and use that to fill the cistern. Correct? I'd run it off a solar panel.

What I'm thinking of is installing a submersible pump at the well and running it off a solar panel. It would be used for flushing toilets and doing laundry and watering the lawn.

What's the recovery rate on the well?

How much available water in the well to start with?

Shallow hand dug or deeper drilled well?

Yes,you can get a solar powered well pump.

Just rough guess but if 150 ft of head ain’t gonna cut it right now with your numbers I see 360-370 ft of head.

How much elevation between the top of the well and the cistern fill port? That height plus the static lift height (depth) of the well is your total head.

Over 300’ you’ll need to right size the line and account for friction loss to make sure the pump will handle that.

A pump manufacture worth a $hit will have pump curves available to get you where you need to be pump wise.

Total STATIC head.

300' of pipe, bunch of elbows and fittings is going to add some to the TOTAL head.

Yes, but if the elevation across the 300’ is 0 then the total static head across that length of pipe is 0. Elbows and fittings are frictional losses that are overcome by static discharge. Hence my comment about a good pump manufacture having pump curves to account for all of that.

He drives a Ford Maverick for a ranch truck and stayed at Holiday Inn.

Maybe I misread this statement


If I have a water well that never seems to run dry and it's . . . we'll say 60-70 feet vertical from the house and across 300 feet of field, and I want to fill a cistern at the house from

Guess the OP should state exactly what he means by vertical feet from the house.

I don't know. I suspect it was hand dug a long time ago for the farm house that was torn down in 1902. It was hand carried up the hill--not a job I'd want. The new house is on top of the hill and the well is down a rather severe slope from the back of the house. Right now that house is fed from a cistern that collects rainwater off the roof. I also have the option of hooking up to city water. The current cistern does fine for now-- weekends and such. I'm thinking of adding on and moving in full time.

Right now, I'm just looking to figure out if there is a possibility of using it, or just covering it over and forgetting about it. I know several acres of pasture drain down to it. It is at the head of a small above-ground stream that has a huge amount of flow
whenever it rains.

Let me clarify: The house sits 300 feet away from the well, and the direct path from house to well undergoes a drop of 55 feet from back porch to the top of the well. There is water in the bottom, but I've yet to determine depth. I know this is missing info, but I figure the hard part is getting up the hill.

What’s your budget? I believe I’d hook on to city water. How many feet of water line would be needed to hookup to city?

Good rule of thumb is height in meters X desired flow per minute in liters divided by 4500 and get a HP number .....and pad that by 3 or 4 for long life.

You answered my question. Can you use it maybe yes maybe no. Depends on the cistern quality and water quality of the well. But depending on pipe size and such you are definitely not going to get by on 150 foot head pump. That isn’t going to work. Cost for one big enough might outweigh usefulness.

What?

Get Angus, Moose, Poo-Bear and Piglet to hand pump it with an old-timey thing.

Or go back to whatever you weren't accomplishing yesterday.

You're gonna need a big damn pump to lift water 60-70' then through 300' of hose. A common shallow well or small submersible pump wont do it.

Build an 80' foot tower with a tank on top

Quite the analysis there, isn't it?

Hmmmmm.....
First off, I don't know how dependable they are, but you can buy submersible, solar powered pumps.
Just remember, unless you have storage batteries, the pump is useless on cloudy days and at night.
But yeah, a submersible will push water that high.

Next, you say the well is 60' to 70' verticle from the house.
Is the house uphill or downhill from the well?

Elevation provides .433 lbs of pressure per foot of elevation.
If the well is 60 feet above the house, it's 60×.433 and you can easily "gravity feed" the cistern.
That will provide enough pressure to fill your cistern easily.
If the well is "below" the house, you'll need a pump that provides enough "head" to get it high enough.
It takes about 85 feet of elevation to get 35psi. Thirty five psi is required by insurance companies to provide fire protection.

NOW! If your submersible pump goes into a pressurized tank, you can crank the pressure up to feed the cistern....OR, you can set up an "airlift" pump to move it to the cistern.

Also, you could use a windmill to pump the well, then pump from a storage tank into your cistern.

I'm currently pumping a 75 foot well with an airlift pump* into a pressure tank. When the tank is full, I revalve the air to pressurize the tank and move the water about 80 feet to my garden.

* - an airlift pump works by pumping air into the bottom of the well pipe. That aerates and lightens the water column in the pipe and pushes the water out if the top of the pipe. Unfortunately, the water comes out in spits and spurts, not a steady flow.

An interesting fact few people know.
Maximum Suction lift is 33 feet, I don't care HOW big the pump is.

Did you say several acres of pasture drain down to it? That would be a deal killer for sure. Especially if you are going to be doing laundry or watering the lawn where it would get aerated so you would/could inhale it. E Coli is a big problem in cattle waste...