# Have New Well, Now how to get the Water out?



## DENALI (Mar 25, 2008)

Hello all.
We have a new well that is 60 feet deep with a 5" casing. I would like to determine the best most feasible way to get the water out of it in a no power situation with a couple goals in mind.
The well will be needed to water the garden so hand pumping that much water is out of the question. I dont really need the well for home use as we have city water for that and if the power does go out then i can carry in enough water to handle the household stuff. I would like to simply gravity feed the garden from the well once the water is up and out. I dont know if i should set something up with a cistern and gravity feed from there or if i should just set something up to where it pumps the water directly to the garden without a cistern. 
Currently we do have a submersible pump in the well so we can use it as is to water the garden but i want to come up with something that is not dependent on grid power. Thanks for any input and if you need more specific details please let me know.


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## Michael Kawalek (Jun 21, 2007)

Hi Denali

First off, do you know what the gallon's per minute of your well pump is, and the refresh rate of your well. If your pump can produce more than 5 gallons per minute, than live irrigation (while pumping that is) should work OK. This assumes that the refresh rate is greater than 5gpm. The refresh rate is how fast water enters the well from the surrounding rock. If less than 5gpm, you might pump the well dry before your irrigation cycle is finished. If that's the case, you might want to pump water into a holding tank (cistern) intermittently, then use the water in mass from the tank.

Is your well pump 110 or 220V? Mine is about a 2.5 kW 220V pump. If the power goes out, you could use a generator putting out 22V power to run the well. You really want the generator anyway, so you can power other household appliances whenever the power's out.

Alternatively, you can get a small solar outfit to run a 12V pump. It may be small enough to run along side your AC pump. It's a lot slower though, measured in gallons per hour, not gallons per minute, which will necessitate a tank to hold enough water to be useful. Yes, you'll be able to make it work, we just have to fit an individual system to what you've got.
Michael


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

I saw stock tanks filled with a windmill when I was trapping coyotes out west. That would allow the water to warm before putting it on the garden and hold a bunch in reserve should the power go out.


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## DENALI (Mar 25, 2008)

Thanks for the replies so far, when they tested the well it recovered faster than their test apparatus could remove the water but i don't know what that number was. They said it was a very very good well. The submersible is a 220v unit and i believe it was 1.5 hp unit.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Well---to me the answer is obvious IF the casing of the well is large enough to accommodate a well cylinder pump.

That would then be to use a windmill or to put a pumpjack on the pump and power it with a gasoline engine.

You would definitely want a used mill and fan assembly and tower as new ones are quite costly, but then again the old ones can be pricey too.

You can figure out all you need here. http://www.windmillhelp.com/

Well cylinder, pipe, rods, pump, mill tower, and mill assembly. or you can skip the mill assembly and go with a pump jack.

The downside of using a mill can be hot, still, summer days with an empty overhead tank.
====
The farm I grew up on used a windmill to fill an enclosed overhead tank with 1,000 gallon capacity. We generally topped off the tank each day to add cool water and so that we didn't run out.

The pump had a diverter valve to force the water into the tank or with it open to deliver water to the stock tank.

Water was gravity fed to the house. 

This old photo shows the windmill, overhead tank before it was enclosed and the proximity to the house. http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t298/growerguy/Barr-Peters/scan0180.jpg


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## jefferson (Nov 11, 2004)

Have you tried training ants to carry little tiny buckets into the well and return with the water? Should work well, as long as you are not to thirsty.


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## DENALI (Mar 25, 2008)

Does anyone have any ideas on what setup to use for a solar system and pump that wouldn't require a battery system? Something that would pump during daylight hours into a cistern with a float switch possibly to shut it off when full. Thanks


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## miboje (Sep 22, 2009)

I'm sorry I don't have an answer to your specific question, but I was wondering,..if you only need this to water the garden, wouldn't a rain barrel be much easier? Plants prefer rain water to ground water, and no power is required. I apologize if I missed something.


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## FarmerGreen (Dec 11, 2007)

I am going to go solar with mine, but it will be much deeper than 60'. I googled "solar well pump" and got :

[ame]http://www.google.com/search?q=solar+well+pump&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a[/ame]


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## blufford (Nov 23, 2004)

Windy in Kansas said:


> Well---to me the answer is obvious IF the casing of the well is large enough to accommodate a well cylinder pump.
> 
> That would then be to use a windmill or to put a pumpjack on the pump and power it with a gasoline engine.
> 
> ...



Cool picture of your old farmstead


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Yes lots of wells were set up with a solar system with no batterys.
Quite easy . . .enough PV panels to power your chosen DC pump along with a LCB and your good to go.


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## DENALI (Mar 25, 2008)

jim-mi said:


> yes lots of wells were set up with a solar system with no batterys.
> Quite easy . . .enough pv panels to power your chosen dc pump along with a lcb and your good to go.


lcb?...


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

LCB--- linear current booster.
Electronic device that gets the pump started earlier . . in lower light conditions . . . .same effect works for cloudy days.


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## byexample (Aug 28, 2009)

We're using a low volume SunPump well pump via solar. It pumps 1.2 gallons / minute at 110 feet. With higher water levels it will pump much faster. It could easily be setup to pump direct from solar panels or you could easily support it with a small battery bank.

In our setup we're pumping into a 1600 gallon above ground water tank. From there we use a Shurflo pressure pump for our entire homestead including the garden. Even with only 1.2 gallons per minute we're able to meet all our needs and we grew about 75% of our own veggies last year and live in the desert. Both the well pump and the pressure pump are 24 volt appliances that could be easily supported with around 160 watts of solar panels at 24 volts.

These small pumps are very light and can be lowered into one's well above your higher volume well pump and plumbed with flexible poly-pipe instead of a more rigid piping.

Best of all is that both of these pumps are "low budget" solutions (for solar anyway).


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

I have windmills and submersible pump under the windmill cylinder,

one mill pumps water up 265 feet and then horizontally over 2700 feet 

the other mill, has the submersible pump under it and normally pumps with the windmill but if no wind or low I can kick on the electric and it will pump through the cylinder, 

here is a discussion on the way it is done,
http://vintage-windmill-parts.com/p...3&t=1063&sid=b3029ecca1ba75d5d6197fcea098fc90

and if you have any windmill questions the guys and gals on the board normally are most willing to help, http://vintage-windmill-parts.com/phpBB3/index.php?sid=b3029ecca1ba75d5d6197fcea098fc90

unless one is planing on a lot of power outages a generator is a good way to back up the well, with a eclectic motor, 

windmills will need free flow , not a pressure tank, but a open storage tank, or a cistern and then for pressure most use a jet pump out of the storage tank, but if you wanted a sub pump and pressure tank, if you do have a pump jack or windmill one would need a way of opening up the line to let it free flow, one more thing, if your desperate the wind does not blow on command so a storage system of some type is important,

here is one of my mills,


















one thing that is nice with the tall or raised tank is one can gravity feed the farm if necessary and not need any booster pump for water the pictures are taken from the door of the house, and when the tank is full it will even gravity feed the upstairs toilet so it can be flushed,


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

In my searching, I've found 12v submersible pumps to be very very pricey.


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