Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

inthejungle

I need some help- I am moving to the jungle of Liberia, West Africa and need to get some water issues sorted.


I have a solar system, 3 245w panels, rolls batteries 400ah,charge controller-FM80, honda generator and such. This will keep our power needs going, but my wife is asking me to get one more thing setup


We need to get a bit of water in the house- she is being very kind and saying that it does not need to be a gravity fed system, but would like to be able to hand pump a bucket of water into her sink.

The well is going to be dug in the next few weeks, 30ft deep hand dug, shallow well, with 4" casing, wells in the areas are finding water at about 10 feet down in this 30ft well. Well is going to be about 25-50ft from the house.


I had thought about putting a hand pump, mounted on her kitchen sink and then running pvc to the well, sort of like this

http://www.ericsprojects.com/?page_id=274



here is where I need some of y'alls help


1- my budget is low because of solar equipment costs, I would like to spend no more than 300
2- I need equipment that will work- I am 15 hours in dry season from the city with supplies



What kind of hand pump could I use?

Would it be better to run a very small 12v pump from the well and fill a bucket in the house once a day?


Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks in advance

inetdog

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

inthejungle wrote: »

Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks in advance

A suction hand pump will not have enough lift to pull water any higher than 30 feet above the water level in the well. It sounds like that will not be a problem for you if you are on level ground.

You can also use a combination suction/pressure hand pump with a sealed outlet pipe (with a tee and a shutoff valve to draw water) to pump straight into an elevated storage tank. One tank could be mounted above the roof in the sun to give you warm/not water if you want it.

Running an electric pump will be a convenience if you have to power to spare, at least during the day. If you have more power from your panels than you need to fully charge your batteries, use the extra to run the electric pump in the afternoon to fill a tank at the house. I think that you will find that an electric pump will cost less than a good hand pump, with its seals that need maintenance, etc. For the electric pump you will definitely need to put a foot valve in the well to hold water at the pump. Unlike the hand pump, it will not create much suction when trying to pump air.

One other thing to look at would be to put a hand pump of the lift type (a rod going to the bottom of a pipe in the well with the pump piston at the bottom) located at the top of the well, with the outlet pipe going to storage at the house. That kind of pump does not need to be primed. It can be made locally with less expensive materials and machining than a suction pump and will keep working longer without needing repair.

inthejungle

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

Thank you so much for your thoughts



A suction hand pump will not have enough lift to pull water any higher than 30 feet above the water level in the well. It sounds like that will not be a problem for you if you are on level ground.

I have heard that 30ft is the max a suction hand pump can do- I think I should be OK, have you seen any good hand pumps that would work and not cost an arm or my leg? I saw Bison Pumps, Simple Pump, and some on Lehmans, but there is quite the price gap, 50 at lehmans and then 1000 at Bison. I did find one company Oasis Pumps
http://www.oasispumps.com



Running an electric pump will be a convenience if you have to power to spare,

For the electric pump you will definitely need to put a foot valve in the well to hold water at the pump. Unlike the hand pump, it will not create much suction when trying to pump air.

Does anyone know of a well built, low cost electric pump that I could use that comes with a foot valve? Maybe something from a boat or an RV??




One other thing to look at would be to put a hand pump of the lift type (a rod going to the bottom of a pipe in the well with the pump piston at the bottom) located at the top of the well, with the outlet pipe going to storage at the house. That kind of pump does not need to be primed. It can be made locally with less expensive materials and machining than a suction pump and will keep working longer without needing repair.

Do you have an example of this, know where I could find something like this or plans to make something like this? I need to get a better understanding of how to make this locally and what it would look like.

mike95490

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

You might find a useful hand pump at Lehman Hardware
https://www.lehmans.com/c-273-water.aspx

Blackcherry04

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

While there is all kinds of pumps search for " Rope Pump " for low cost. For 30 ft lift you don't need that much, just a little ingenuity.

Here are some, depends on how fancy you want them.

http://www.sunshineworks.com/motorized-hand-pump.htm


http://www.google.com/search?q=rope+pump&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=ubuntu&channel=fs#hl=en&sugexp=les%3B&gs_rn=6&gs_ri=psy-ab&gs_mss=solar%20powered%20shallowwell%20pump&pq=solar%20powered%20well%20pump&cp=22&gs_id=53&xhr=t&q=solar+powered+shallow+well+pump&es_nrs=true&pf=p&client=ubuntu&hs=K6s&channel=fs&sclient=psy-ab&oq=solar+powered+shallow+well+pump&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=aaeba9b7f058e829&biw=1024&bih=419

inetdog

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

inthejungle wrote: »

Do you have an example of this, know where I could find something like this or plans to make something like this? I need to get a better understanding of how to make this locally and what it would look like.

Rather than going into details here, I will suggest that you do some internet searches that will allow you to home in on what meets your needs.

One starting point is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_pump

and here, for a high volume suction type pump: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.echocommunity.org/resource/collection/C01889C5-4BB2-424C-962F-F5B14EF26E69/PVC_Water_Pumps.JBL.pdf This one appears to be more suited for a community than an individual well.

A Google search using "hand water lift pump design" pulls up a lot of good sources, including some YouTube videos on making your own pump. (I have NOT looked at them and do not endorse them, but they sound interesting.)

The biggest advantage of the lift pump is that the seals only need to block water flow and not air flow and so are not as critical. The disadvantage is that part of the pump mechanism must be below the water surface and mechanically connected to the top handle.

inetdog

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

mike95490 wrote: »

You might find a useful hand pump at Lehman Hardware
https://www.lehmans.com/c-273-water.aspx

Veeeery expensive compared to simple suction pumps. And best suited for deep wells.

BB.

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

~30' is the lift for a "perfect" vacuum. Anything over 20 feet of lift is going to be problematic.

And, if you can avoid any suction type pump and install an in-well pump, it will probably be more reliable in the long term. Small air leaks, plugged strainers, foot valves, are all just more things that can cause problems.

-Bill

inthejungle

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

Thanks for everyone's help, I done a lot of research and I have decided that I could build something, but it would be hard to source things from the city and bring them to our rural site.

The other problem is buying a small hand pump that is steel or something can be heavy. Finally after much searching I found this company

http://oasispumps.com

This man was very kind over the phone and helpful, he explained that he is using his pumps everyday and has customers that have been using them daily for years. He has sent them all over the world, he has one customer that has been using the pump for 20 years and had no problems. The great thing is it weight 4lbs and made of PVC and stainless steel. I can easily get one brought to the city and then get it out here. They charge about 140 for the pump so not a real expensive experiment.

I am going to give it a try and maybe one day will write to tell you how great it works. If anyone needs something like this- they make deep and shallow hand pumps for wells. Give Tim a call and he can help you out, a really genuine guy!

ITJ

BB.

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

That is a very nice solution.

-Bill

KeithWHare

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

From the description and the video, the Oasis Pumps look pretty good and pretty simple.

You may want to double check whether or not you can get the schedule 80 PVC pipe where you are. When we installed a pump (electric) in Haiti last summer, we didn't find any schedule 80 PVC pipe. We were able to use galvanized pipe, but it was a LOT heavier.

Keith

mikeo

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

If you decide on an electric pump, look at NEMO pumps on the internet. They are made from standard Flojet parts and are submersible so lift is not much of a problem. Costs around 240 dollars.

BB.

Re: Moving to the jungle. . . how to deliver water to my house

I believe this is the website MikeO is suggesting:

NEMO SOLAR DC SUBMERSIBLE WELL PUMPS

-Bill