# Help with Pumping water from pond.



## baseball (Jan 8, 2013)

I'm running either 1" or 2" pe pipe around my farm for watering my cattle. I'm going to have around 6000 feet of lines ran with taps every 200 ft. I will be doing rotational grazing, moving my cattle and their water trough everyday.

I plan on running a line from my pond to my barn and then running the lines from my barn around my 80 acres. I'm also planning on setting a large poly tank by the barn to store and hopefully gravity feed my lines. Although to start I probably won't have the poly tank in line.

My land has around 20 ft of elevation change around it. The lower point being at the pond. The higher point being by the barn.

The barn is about 600 feet from the pond.

I'm trying to decide whether I should:

Use a pump next to the pond

Use a submersible pump in the pond

Run off solar

Run electric to the pond and if so with what type of electric wire

Try to put a pump at the barn and fill the line with a check valve at end of the line at the pond and see if I can pump while pulling a prime from the pond.

I would like this system to be in use year round and I can bury the poly pipe but I'm not sure about the reliability of the pump and water trough running in freezing temperatures.

Any help would be much appreciated.


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## Fire-Man (Apr 30, 2005)

600ft is a long way to run a wire to a good size pump---if you are going to do this you might want to just get a service pole and get the electric company to hook to it. Trying to go solar with a pump setup that can handle your 6000 feet of pipe would get expensive too.

I do not raise cows but I will tell you what I do for garden sprinklers, filling water tanks etc. I got a gas pump setup at my lake. I been using it for 10 years and it still works good, but again I do not use it every day. I have about 800ft of 2" pipe running sprinklers that I control which ones I want to use. I am thinking this might work for you. I control how long the gas pump runs by how much gas I put in the pumps gas tank. Thinking when you move your water tank, you just figure out how many ounces of fuel you need to put in your pump so it will run long enough to fill their water tank. 

For below freezing winter times---You can have the pump inside a weather protected pump house---exhaust piped out---bury the suction line and have a valve in the lowest place in your pipe run that will allow all the water to drain out the pipe after the pump stops.

If you had to replace the $250 pump(or cheaper) every few years----that would not be alot of expence divided over several years usage.

Also there is simple little propane heaters that can keep the pump house above freezing.

Just My Thoughts!


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Your going to have an awful lot of line friction lost in that 6000 feet of small pipe.
Therefore a mighty big pump---very big PV bank------Big bucks......

Or . . . A big 240vac pump right beside the pond . . . trench in 8/3 wire to the pump . . . . .


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## LincTex (Oct 11, 2010)

How many gallons will you need per 24 hour period?

I am thinking a Shur-Flo 12VDC running on solar will be your best best to get the water up to an elevated storage tank, and gravity feed out from there.


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## baseball (Jan 8, 2013)

I would like to have about 1000 gallons per day.


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## simi-steading (Sep 27, 2012)

hhhmmm.. 600 feet of 2" pipe over a 20 foot rise... I think I'd start looking to see just how big a pump you need first.. The price of that alone may make you rethink this whole deal... 

Granted, if you pumped to a tank, then used that to pressure the rest of your lines, you may be able to get by with a smaller pump for the whole system, but still, to get that water 600 feet and up a 20 foot rise, you will be needing a fair sized pump.. .

A calculator like this will help you figure out what size pipe and pump you'll need for that first run.. .

http://www.aquaticeco.com/calculators/pump-calculator.htm

The problem isn't going to be how much flow you get at the end of the pipe, but rather finding a pump that can push that much head pressure...

600' of 2" pipe will be holding roughly 98 gallons of water... figure that is around 820 lbs... uphill.. then figure what kind of friction you have on that pipe, and I hope you see how big of a pump you'll need to push that amount of weight..

If you can go with a larger pipe, you will reduce your friction, but increase the weight, but you will have less of a head lift number.. You need to find the sweet spot..

With the raw numbers you gave, this is what the calculator spit out.. This is for a straight pipe with no bends and no filters involved.. 

Flow Velocity 95.6 fps
Pipe Head Loss 6961.7 feet
Fittings Head Loss 0 feet
Vertical Lift 20 feet
Misc. Head Loss 0 feet
Total Pump Head Required	6981.7 feet
3026.6	psi


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

The cheapest route is to put the tank in NOW, and use a smaller pump to feed it from the pond. Go with a 1500gal poly tank, and elevate it some if possible, or you're gonna have VERY little pressure out at the ends of the lines.

I'd probably use a shallow well jet pump set beside the pond, run a 1" line to the tank, and 2" lines out from the tank. Couple gallons/min is all you need.....2gpm over 24hrs is 2880gals, meaning you'd fill the tank nearly twice in 24hrs. 3/4hp pump will do this easy as long as it doesn't have to lift the water out of the pond more than a few feet. ( the more the lift, the less the output ) On 600', I'd go with what Jim said......8-3 wire for the pump, and run it on 240v.


When you run the pipe trench, be sure to drop some 12-2UF in with it for a float switch at the tank so when it does fill, it automatically shuts off the pump.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Unless you have a darn big pond, extracting that much volume per day, your going to pump that "pond" dry in short order...........
How will the pond resupply itself. . . ?? 

Sorry but that Shurflow 12vdc pump would not be anywhere near able to meet what you want.
And it's life would be very short running 24/7.................


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

Jim-mi said:


> Unless you have a darn big pond, extracting that much volume per day, your going to pump that "pond" dry in short order...........
> How will the pond resupply itself. . . ??
> 
> Sorry but that Shurflow 12vdc pump would not be anywhere near able to meet what you want.
> And it's life would be very short running 24/7.................


Same thing you said to me...

[YOUTUBE]Q6PNECxhUI0[/YOUTUBE]


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

double post


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Sorry Stan but your comparison is highly tarnished.....
The other guy would like 1000 gallons a day . . . . . . your hook-up does far far less.
No Shur-flow pump is going to begin to get any where near that 1000 gallons on a four hour solar day....................period . .end of report.....

And I quit reading posts from people who are so contrary and totally biased..............


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

To the op..

You can do it with solar, with a cheap 12v pump, and with 3/4" poly pipe.

First things first. The pumps can't freeze. But they can be placed in a pump pit like other irrigation pumps.

The way I'd do it is like this.

1 120 watt panel.
3 100+ AH batteries
1 charge controller
One pump like this http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200352048_200352048


#1 Pump will need to run 5 hours a day.(it has a full time rating)
#2 The pump uses 4 amps per hour or 20 amps hours per day or 240 watts. The panel will provide about 480 watt hours a day, good amount of extra for fall and winter days when less sun hours are available.
#3 The batteries will provide 20 amp hours a day maintaining well above 90% of the battery power for long life and Plenty of extra for cloudy rainy days. 


You only need 3/4" pipe because the slow flow and low pressures required.


Total cost will be...
150 for the pump 
300 for the panel 
300 for the batteries
150 for the pipe.
75 charge controller.
or about a thousand bucks for a total solar solution.


In summer you can likely get much more water(two times on average). In winter the 1000 gals. would still be done with this system with the extra's noted above). If you really don't need that much in winter and can use less, say 500 gallons with the 1000 just in summer the system could be smaller and cheaper by half.


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## LincTex (Oct 11, 2010)

From the well to our house is about 1000-1200 feet away, and about a 30 foot rise. (I can't remember the rating on the submersible pump , but anyways...) The black poly pipe from the well to pressure tank is looks about 1-1/4" ID. One pressure tank is at the well, the other pressure tank is in the basement.

From the basement is 3/4" ID black poly that is buried out to the barn about 300 feet away. There is one hydrant there, and then it continues out further almost another 1/4 mile (1000-1100 feet or so) to another hydrant. So- somewhere about 1/2 mile or so total. (level ground to there)

There is no problems with flow rate out of that hydrant at the end of the line (about 10 gallons per minute? I never really measured it). I see no need to go with 2" pipe, that is insane. 3/4" should be fine from pond to tank. A 3/4hp-1hp Wayne shallow well pump with a 3/4NPT or 1NPT outlet should handle that (since it is just dumping into a storage tank). I think you would need a pressure tank at the pump/pond.


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

Jim-mi said:


> Sorry Stan but your comparison is highly tarnished.....
> The other guy would like 1000 gallons a day . . . . . . your hook-up does far far less.
> No Shur-flow pump is going to begin to get any where near that 1000 gallons on a four hour solar day....................period . .end of report.....
> 
> And I quit reading posts from people who are so contrary and totally biased..............


So you didn't read the specs..

That pump uses 4 amps and pumps 216 gallons an hour... 5 x 200 = 1000 gallons. 


My little setup does about 350 gallons on a sunny day. I have a longer run and more than double the elevation change.


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

LincTex said:


> From the well to our house is about 1000-1200 feet away, and about a 30 foot rise. (I can't remember the rating on the submersible pump , but anyways...) The black poly pipe from the well to pressure tank is looks about 1-1/4" ID. One pressure tank is at the well, the other pressure tank is in the basement.
> 
> From the basement is 3/4" ID black poly that is buried out to the barn about 300 feet away. There is one hydrant there, and then it continues out further almost another 1/4 mile (1000-1100 feet or so) to another hydrant. So- somewhere about 1/2 mile or so total. (level ground to there)
> 
> There is no problems with flow rate out of that hydrant at the end of the line (about 10 gallons per minute? I never really measured it). I see no need to go with 2" pipe, that is insane. 3/4" should be fine from pond to tank. A 3/4hp-1hp Wayne shallow well pump with a 3/4NPT or 1NPT outlet should handle that (since it is just dumping into a storage tank). I think you would need a pressure tank at the pump/pond.


For all the effort he could just put in some rigid PVC and pump it from the top at the barn. Suction pumps will pull that far easily. Not even a big deal at all.

It is only 20 ft after all. A pump will pull 30 or so. The 600 means nothing.


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## baseball (Jan 8, 2013)

What would be the reason for running pvc instead of poly pipe to the barn on the suction idea.

Also what type of pump would I install at the barn to pull that suction from the barn?

Thanks for all the info everyone.


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## LincTex (Oct 11, 2010)

I don't know about the suction part of the equation..... most pumps do NOT do well on the suction portion of their performance. 33.9 feet is the max vertical distance, it will boil due to vacuum any higher than that. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suction

I would try to get the pump as close to the water source as possible. A Shur-Flo does pretty well pumping pressure. You may need more than one to reach your goals. I think 3/4" poly (lowest cost?) would be fine to go from pump source to barn. If you need two pumps, both can pump into this one line.


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