I have a 330' drilled well with a submersible pump at 300'.  The water level comes within 42' of the surface.  What options do I have for retrieving water without power?  Standard hand pumps will only lift 20' or so.

I have a generator that will run my existing pump, but gas will eventually run out.  I hate to think I would have to make trips to the creek when I have perfectly good water right at the house.  I am looking at getting a couple solar panels, but I don't know of a 12V pump that will pump with 50' of head.

How does everyone else handle it?

http://bisonpumps.com/
Deep Well Hand Pumps

Deep Well Hand Pumps reach a static water level of 300' feet. Our deep well pumps can pressurize a tank, are self-priming and require no routine maintenance. There are deep well pumps that fit a variety of applications and work in conjunction with electric submersible pumps in most applications.

Or make your own out of PVC.

I looked at my well setup for just this purpose....someone makes a stainless rig for about a 1000.00$....only I can't use it because about ten feet down my pipe I have some sort of barrier blocking the pipe....so the entire assembly would have to be "craned" out  (or pulled manually...)

google: stainless manual well pump

Bison Pumpms

I have no idea what others do, however...

In a pinch, since lifting 40 feet is only 20 psi of head pressure...

Suspending even an inexpensive $50 RV water pump and feeding a couple amps at 12vdc to it, say 35 feet below the surface,

Would pump almost all the water to the surface you would need to survive!



Easy solution!

Yea........looks like $1500 min.  Not gonna happen.  If that is all that's available I will have to try to build my own.

They are charging $69 for an 8' piece of 1 1/4" PVC pipe and a piece of threaded rod?  And $889 just for the handle with spigot?  

Probably an old style pitless adapter (or a torque arrestor). I have the same thing. Must be removed and upgraded to allow ANYTHING else down the casing

 

Found one for $550 but the website is not working very well for me.  Can't see any pictures and it takes forever to load.  May just be my old laptop.

http://flojak.com/flojak-original-100-foot-pvc-pump-kit/

Don't know about a pump but I've seen people that use this tube
That catches about. 5 gallion of water at a time and the
Pull it back with a rope to dump in a bucket.

I have a 600' drilled well, but the water-level is about 50' down. I put a Bison pump on it almost 4 years ago, and its been trouble-free. What prompted me to do it was during the winter if '08 and we had those two weeks with out power. My cheesy coleman genny went tango uniform, and I slipped and fell into the creek while getting flush water. Now I got two Honda generators, and a manual water pump. All I need now is windpower to make it all live forever.

Handy well pump

Best by far and way less money then the rest.

look up deep piston hand pump...babaloo42 and sameggers1... check out their vids on youtube... the basic PVC pump is outlined by babaloo, and a good modification to blocking the pump tube with a nickel by eggers... using an existing 1 1/4" drop tube and foot valve, the smaller foot valve and tubing was less than $65

That's how my grandmother retrieved water until the mid 70's. It's a galvanized bucket designed to use with steel well pipe. Rope and pulley it down the pipe and it fills with water. Bring it up and open the valve on the bottom to dump it. I hadn't seen such a bucket from about 1975 to the mid 90's when I sat down in a Cracker Barrel and saw one hanging on the wall.



 

Are you planning on using the well pump to supply your entire house, or just your drinking water?

It really doesn't take much generator fuel to pump enough water for drinking purposes.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_17/660216__ARCHIVED_THREAD____How_to_get_water_froma__deep_well_without_electricity___no_pump_method.html&page=1
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_17/659458__ARCHIVED_THREAD____Well_water_when_power_goes_out.html
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_17/666718__ARCHIVED_THREAD____What_are_my_well_hand_pump_options_.html
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_17/663147__ARCHIVED_THREAD____Well_water_extraction___post_SHTF.html

ar-jedi

you would have to pull the submersible pump up first, in order to get the "bucket" down.

pulling a deep well submersible pump is not trivial; the weight of the piping and pump, along with the water in the pipe (the check valve is at the bottom) means the entire pump string weighs around 500lbs.  you need an A-frame and winch -- you are not pulling it out by hand.

see also
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_17/651558__ARCHIVED_THREAD____Why_do_you_need_a_generator_.html&page=3#i11116047

ar-jedi

I had a simple pump installed.

http://www.simplepump.com/

It connect directly to my pitless. I have a very large pressure tank. I can use the simplepump to get about 35psi into it which is pretty decent.

Total cost with installation was $4100 but I had other things done.

Simple pump + 220 feet of pipe + excavation to connect to pitless.
New pressure tank
New Well pump.


If I drain my home of water down to my tank in the basement it takes about 7 pumps before water starts flowing into my upstairs kitchen sink.
They do recommend changing the seal on top and on the bottom every 4-5 years. No idea what that is going to cost me.

Have on dedicated deep well hand pump- nothing else on the well just the big stand up green hand pump.

Another well has a Sunpumps solar submersible that runs off of one 235 Watt 24 volt panel- 147' to water level there,pump is dropped below that.

Next one that I'll install will be a Sunpumps solar submersible with a Simple pump hand pump above the Sunpump. Have everything sitting here, just lacking the time...

Have heard good things on the Simple pump from people that install a lot of them. Scott at Practical Preppers installs a lot of Simple pumps and recommended it. He's a good guy and knows water!

Lowdown3

pulling a deep well submersible pump is not trivial; the weight of the piping and pump, along with the water in the pipe (the check valve is at the bottom) means the entire pump string weighs around 500lbs.  you need an A-frame and winch -- you are not pulling it out by hand.

ar-jedi




He ain't lying.  Helped a friend do this and it's a wonder someone didn't go to the ER.  Reminded me of a Laurel & Hardy movie, actually.

I installed a Simple Pump last summer and it was "as advertised".

Had some help installing the new well cap but did the rest myself.

All quality parts and I like the idea of pumping into my pressure system.

They also have a motor (24v ?) option for it.

Tom

I got one of these and the PVC and schedule 4 (?) pipe to go with it a few years ago.

My well goes to 230' and had static water at 45' a few years ago. After the wet last few years, I'm sure it's that high now, at least.

The only downside is it can't pressurize anything or run into hoses & stuff. It CAN do 10 gal's per minute, though.

ETA: I take it back! That must NOT be the one I got - although it looks just like it! Mine can go 200+ feet and, as I recall, can't pressurize (like I said). Maybe I'd better check on that, though!  

2nd Edit: I called Lehman's and am awaiting a call-back. Nonetheless, I looked at the comments and this likely IS the pump I have. Some folks have had problems with it, though, and it's no longer advertised as pumping from 200'. Strangely, though, it does say it can pump uphill and into pressurized systems!

Go figure! (Of course, that all depends on whether it works or not!)  

You could always Build a Well Bucket.

from the link above:


ar-jedi

I installed a Baker pump:





found here:

http://wisementrading.com/water/well_pumps.htm

works great!

I bought the parts to attempt to make a pump yesterday.  I will get to it sometime this week and see if I can make it work.

Any update? I've been needing to do this myself, and your thread got me really looking into it.

I bought the parts and put the pump section together the other day.

Here are the parts laid out in the order they go together.

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I haven't taken a pic of it put together, but I will try to do that in the next couple days.

The smaller section (piston) is put together and goes inside the larger section (body).  The threaded cap on the top of the piston is factory made with 4 stiffeners between the threads and the slip.  I drilled out everything between the stiffeners, threaded in a 3/4" x 3/8" reducer and then threaded in a 5' length of threaded rod.
The piston is inserted into the pump, and the pump is reduced to 3/4" pipe.  

As the piston is lifted it pulls water into the body past the foot valve.  As the piston is pushed down the marble breaks the seal in the bottom of the piston (seals enough that you can't force air thru it with by blowing thru the pipe.).  As it is lifted up again the marble seals and pushes the water out the top and up the pipe.

I had a 55 gal drum filled with water outside the basement.  To test it I only used a 4' stick of pipe.  On the 4th or 5th pull up of the threaded rod I got soaked.  

Will it pull it up the 50' that I need?  I don't know, but judging by the pressure of the water that came out I would have to bet in favor of it.  I may have to add some leather gaskets on the outside of the piston to get enough pressure to push it that far, but I'm not sure.  It is already a pretty snug fit.

I have the handle and nozzle designed in my head, but before I build that I am going to build one of the old style well covers that looks like you would use a bucket.  Right now all we have is one of the fake rocks......no place to mount a pump.

I am going to be sent out of town for work for most of the summer, but I will get it done at some point soon and update this thread.

25-06... I used about a 6' piece of 1" PVC for the piston to provide more friction and a 3/4" foot valve...coming out of the top of the piston with a 1/2" "T" with the center leg of the T ground off flush that the pumped water comes through (horizontal to the piston and pump rod)... block off the pump rod with a nickel glued between the T and the pump rod....the nickel works if you use a 1/2" PVC pump rod