240 volt well pump

ws9876 · July 2016

some people who go off grid might prefer to keep their 240 volt submersible pump cause they work so well and re plumbing a well is a pain.
Anyone here live off grid and have a generator system on their well that works really well and is somewhat automated?? Whats your setup??

mike95490 · July 2016

I have a 240VAC half hp well pump, that is on a timer to only run daylight hours. It pumps to a tank about 160' up a hill, so I have water pressure at any time day or night. The pump is a conventional 3 wire Franklin motor. I have a float switch in the water tank that shuts off the contactor for the pump when the tank is full.
In cloudy conditions, I run the generator manually once a week to top off the tank.

animatt · July 2016

From the way you are speaking it seems like you have or had grid power and now switching to offgrid.
Thus you already have a well setup.

There are various reason people that do that. I am not sure your motivation. But economics should not be a reason. As grid electricity is much cheaper than off grid power.

The vast majority of offgrid homes probably start that way. So they if the do the research first would only ever put in 1 well pump.
Not really an answer to your question though.

Are you looking to run a generator gas or diesel? Or producing solar power.

If you have the height diff. on your property Mikes way of running a pressure system is very flexible and robust.

ws9876 · July 2016

I would want to run the Franklin pump straight from a generator ....maybe set up a timer and auto start to pump with gasoline for 5 minutes at a time into a cistern ,maybe once every 2 hours during the daylight and not more than 60 gallons a day.....and run a second small submersible in the plastic tank to the pressure tank.The small sub would run off the inverter.
Thats not too big a load for an inverter especially if its pumping over level ground.The Franklin I have in my 100 ft well is very dependable and rugged.

Desert Rat · July 2016

I have a 240V pump in a 300 ft. well. I use a generator to fill a 1750 gallon tank. A 24VDC Shurflo diaphragm pump connects the big tank to a pressure tank. The Shurflo draws about 4 amps @ 24V. That said, I seldom use this system because I have rain catchment with 7000 gallons of storage. I can open valves to switch between well water and rainwater to the pressure tank.
Why would you pump for just a few minutes at a time, and why every day? If you use 60 gal/day, a 1750 gallon tank would only require filling once a month. And a small diaphragm pump would be less expensive and more efficient than a second submersible.

jonr · July 2016

> As grid electricity is much cheaper than off grid power.

I don't know about all cases - if you already have a solar panels + batteries system in place, adding a little extra capacity for usage while the sun is shining (ie, no additional batteries) costs very little.

> elevated tank

Same here - pressurizing a little bit of water from a non-elevated tank takes little power from the batteries.

ws9876 · July 2016

you have a 7000 ga tank??? or is it a collapsible???

ws9876 · July 2016

I heard from a tech advisor at Franklin and he said that my 2 hp Franklin submersible pump would require a 7500 watt generator...
can you .... believe that...

Desert Rat · July 2016

ws9876 said:

you have a 7000 ga tank???

4 X 1750 gal.

jonr · July 2016

> 2 hp Franklin submersible pump would require a 7500 watt generator

Sounds reasonable without a VFD.

mike95490 · July 2016

My 1/2 hp franklin logs 1,000 w on the inverter power meter. The starting surge is killer. My 3Kw portable genset can just barely run the pump. the power factor on the motors is what needs the reserve power.

Mike 4 x 3,000 tanks = 12,000 in elevated storage @ 70PSI

MichaelK · August 2016

ws9876 said:

I heard from a tech advisor at Franklin and he said that my 2 hp Franklin submersible pump would require a 7500 watt generator...
can you .... believe that...

Yes, for sure. I have a 1.5 HP Grunfos 3-wire pump and it's starting amps is between 35-38 at 240VAC. Running amps is 10.0-10.1 amps. Assuming that your 2HP pump requires 1.33X the current, I'd estimate your starting amps would be in the ~50 amps range (that's 12,000+ watts) and runs at 13.3 amps (3200 watts). I power my own well with a 6.5Kw AC-Delco generator, and I can pop circuit breakers if I try to start a big skilsaw while pumping water.

Mangas · August 2016

Here on the ranch, I have wells on Grunfos 240v and on Grunfos multi volt well pumps.

The older well has a 240v pump that is connected to an 8kw generator which I manually run weekly to keep two underground water storage supply tanks topped up, located about a half mile away through a dedicated pipeline. Each storage tank has a 1/2 horse 240v Grunfos pump with pump control which supply a 500 gallon water pressure tank controlled by a pressure guage. A Gast air pump controlled by a "to the minute" digital timer maintains the tank's periodic water to air ratio.

I prefer this semi automatic approach for two reasons. Well cycling is reduced and second, because of where we live if a hose or float is left on draining the supply tanks it won't put the well at risk.

With the new multi-volt well pump technology, I plan to replace the 240v well pump with the newer multi volt pump and set it up to run on solar panels or switched to genset with a control box like the other well. This new multi-volt well pump will run using only a Honda 2000 which speaks highly to pump technology advances.

240 volt well pump

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