DIY water Pumps

[matt walker]

I've never heard of it, but it looks amazing. I'm starting to get ideas for more projects!

[pa_friendly_guy]

Just do like Doctor Winchester on Mash, do one thing, do it very, very well, and then move on.

[pa_friendly_guy]

I talked with a fella this weekend from Northern Pa. He was making a homestead on 25 acres of hill side. Their water system was run by a Ram Pump along a spring below the house. He was pumping water year round and storing it in a 1000 gal tank above the house. He has used several plastic ram pumps and found that they did not hold up to the high preasures that he needed for his installation. He even blew a steel unit. He now used cast iron pipes for his pump. His pump is pumping at high preasures to move the water well above his house for preasure and gravity flow into the house. I asked him about freezing problems, he said the pump was down in a 10 foot deep hole that kept it from freezing. The plastic line from the pump to the storage tank has frozen on occation, it is plastic and seems to be ok when it thaws out in a day or two. It was great to actually talk with someone using the ram pump on a daily basis for 100% of their water needs. He said the 1000 gal tank is always full and over flowing, He waters his garden with that water.

[matt walker]

Great info in this thread Guy, thank you. I followed a lead from one of those videos you posted and found this document, "Water Pumping Ram Pumps, Hydraulic Ram Pump Manual" by S B Watt.
http://www.watersanitationhygiene.org/R ... TDG%29.pdf

[Lollykoko]

Matt, I got a 404 error at your link.

[matt walker]

Thanks Lolly, I think it's fixed now. If not, just google part of it, it'll be the first to come up. I read it after posting, it's amazing info. Really, a fantastic resource.

[Lollykoko]

Yes, that did fix the problem. Thank you.

[pa_friendly_guy]

That is a Great manual on making and using Ram Pumps Matt. I have a stream with pretty good fall and a flow of a Gal or two per min where I could install a Ram Pump, but I can't get the water pumped all the way up my steep hill to the top. I can not think of a use for having water 1/2 way up the hill with out any live stock. I still Love the idea of using a Ram Pump, it is just such wonderful technology. Maybe a Large gravity flow fountain discharging from a large holding tank, that would shoot water very high into the air when it was turned on. Not a very practical use of a Ram Pump, but it would be spectacular to watch,

[matt walker]

I love it Guy! Or, maybe, a series of pumps from cistern to cistern all the way to the top of the hill. Then a giant fountain! Ha.

I'm seriously thinking that the next time my home system's pump fails, I'll spend the money on a big plastic cistern instead of replacing the pump. I have pretty much a perfect set up for a gravity fed whole house system based on a ram pump. The infrastructure is sorta expensive to set up, but once it's in it's free. The electric pump is costing me money every time it runs. I blame you for this wild idea. Thank you!

[pa_friendly_guy]

I have been blamed for A LOT worse things Matt, I actually have thought about the cascade system where you fill one large tank and then use the water from that tank for a 2nd ran pump, all the way to the top of the hill. The inefficiencies inherent in that system vs the expense of the tanks and piping etc just won't justify putting it in. I have about 300 ft vertical to over come, so maybe 3 ram pumps, each one pumping 10% of the water in that tank up 100 ft.. 90% of each tank is lost, So if I had 1 gal. per minute at the spring, it would take 10,000 min. to fill the 1st 1000gal. tank. Then only 100 gal of that tank would go up to the next tank, so it would have to cycle 10 times to fill the 2nd tank. Granted, once the 2nd tank was filled its waste water could be directed back to the 1st tank so that it would fill back up quicker. But then only 100 gal of that 2nd 1,000 tank would go to the 3rd tank. I might get a few cups of water up to the garden in my 3 month growing season, Of course it would be running 24/7 all year, so maybe in a few years I would have some water up at the garden to work with, You could use float valves in each tank so that it would automatically open when the tank was full and close again once all the water had drained out to power the ram pumps. The Hugelbeds seemed to be a much better idea as far as keeping moisture in my garden. If I wanted to make a series of ponds down the hillside maybe trickle feeding the ponds with the ram pumps could make sense, but again the flow rate would be so small, I really don't think it is a practical idea.

PS You can see from my description of the system needed to pump water to the top of the hill that I have put A Lot of thought into designing a ram pump system that could theoretically work to pump water to the top of my hill with no energy being used. I loved the idea, and I have thought and studied the idea for years. The system could be built and operated to get some water this high up. The idea falls apart though when you start to figure in the up front costs of installing such a system, and actually do the math to figure out how much water you will actually get at the top of the system. It would be cheaper for me to run a line from the house and use the city water for the garden. It operates gravity flow with out me having to pump any more since they put in a new tank that increases my pressure up here on the hill. I think if I invested the money that I would have to spend on installing the complicated ram pump system the interest would most likely pay my water bill for watering the garden.