# Back up well pumps



## MacPB (Oct 15, 2009)

Does anyone have a back up system in place for their well water.

I have researched this a little and it seems for solar pumps, I've read that the technology is "not quite there yet."

I'm looking into manual hand pumps. It seems that there are three contenders for deep wells:

The one on Lehmans.com

The Simple Pump

Bison Pumps

What I want to do (when funds are available), is either use the pump in the basement to fill up my expansion tank or use the pump outside connected to an outside spicket with a garden hose to fill up the system

Has anyone here done anything like this or does anyone have one of these pumps?

I look forward to any feedback,

Mike


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## CarbonNeutral (Oct 15, 2009)

For my situation - water supply during an outage, I think I'd look for a second hand generator capable of giving me the 220V and wattage I need. I could understand if you were looking for a completely power free solution though.


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## semipro (Oct 15, 2009)

CarbonNeutral said:
			
		

> For my situation - water supply during an outage, I think I'd look for a second hand generator capable of giving me the 220V and wattage I need. I could understand if you were looking for a completely power free solution though.



The 220v backup generator is my plan.  I haven't had to use it yet though as we always conserve heavily during power outages and have a fairly large pressure tank.


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## dvellone (Oct 16, 2009)

MacPB said:
			
		

> I have researched this a little and it seems for solar pumps, I've read that the technology is "not quite there yet."



I've been using a shurflo dc submersible pump for years and it's a very reliable solar pump. I'm using it for my home (family of three), garden irrigation, and some livestock watering, so I'm putting a substantial demand on it. I understand that Sunpumps also makes a high quality and reliable solar pump. These pumps will be comparable in price to Bison's shallow well pump and will run off solar.


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## jebatty (Oct 16, 2009)

Although I have a generator and a 240V transfer circuit for the well pump, the thought also occurred that "what if the well pump failed?" Maybe a doomsday scenario. Fortunately, we live on a lake and even in winter we can get lake water to fill the toilet tanks, and we can treat and/or boil water for drinking, as well as use our camping hand pump purification system for drinking water. But what the hay -- during the summer we swim in the lake and seem to "drink" plenty of water anyway without ill effect. 

Regardless, emergency planning suggest having stored drinking water available during an emergency.


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## Fi-Q (Oct 25, 2009)

I am not started on my back up system yet.... I'm just building the house right now...... But for water, I have a surface well (!5 feet deep) at approx. 50 feet from the house. So I think I will be bale to find something that can easily be put ion the well as a 12v or small 110v pum (will be run off an inverter). Eventually, I would like to have one of those big grid tie in green system. (Like a 5000w 110/220 Xantrex system inverter/charger tie on too solar & wind mill with a grid feed in capability...)  but I am so far from that.........  And I'm on a lake too......   I was thinking that the first cheapest system would be to have a 50 gallon (always full) tank with a 12v rv pump hook to my house plumbing circuit.... once the tank would run empty I can either fill it with my 220v well pump & the generator, or worst case, a 12v pump from the lake to the tank (Just have to not drink the water).

   I'll keep you guys posted when ever I'll get there.....


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## Highbeam (Oct 25, 2009)

So why do you NEED water? Drinking? Well you can easily store enough drinking water to last a long long time. We use water for lots of other things as a luxury like toilets and washing that I admit I really enjoy but that in a doomsday situation well, they can wait. 

A 220 genset is cheap. Go buy a Champion from the auto parts store. Mine is only 4000 watts but they make larger ones too. 

I've pulled well pumps in the past and wouldn't want to do it half-a$$ed in an emergency only to have to redo it later. To that end, buy a full fledged replacement pump to have on hand for the unlikely situation where your current pump dies. 

Or is the concept to come up with a way to pressurize your home plumbing with a source of water other than your well? Like a barrel? The 12 volt RV pump would work great for that. 

You post is about a backup well pump. Unfortunately the typical 6" well casing only allows a single pump to be installed at a time. Another idea that we see used here in my area for low prodcucing wells is to have a low pressure pump fill a large tank on the surface slowly. Then you have a second pump that uses the tank water to pressurize the domestic system. This system has the benefit of a large quantity of stored water on the surface along with easily replaceable pressure pump(s). 

Get a spare pump and a genset.


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## MacPB (Oct 26, 2009)

Thanks for the replies.



> Unfortunately the typical 6” well casing only allows a single pump to be installed at a time.



I believe the one from Lehman's and the bison pump accommodate this, allowing you to have both side-by-side.



> Another idea that we see used here in my area for low producing wells is to have a low pressure pump fill a large tank on the surface slowly. Then you have a second pump that uses the tank water to pressurize the domestic system.



This is so simple, it's genius. Would connect the pump to the expansion tank?


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## Highbeam (Oct 26, 2009)

The expansion tank would be between the pressure pump and the house. You could install a redundant pressure pump with check valves or with real valves or you could even install a duplex system where the pumps alternate. I would just install the single pump with unions and have a spare pump waiting on a shelf. 

The storage tank is usually sited in an insulated garden shed on a concrete slab. The tanks are translucent poly and I can't recall the volume but more than a thousand gallons and less than the volume which requires a fancy building permit. The deep well pump can be a wussy one (even solar) since it isn't fighting pressure head anymore, it is simply lifting the water from the well into the non-pressurized tank at a slow rate. It can even run only when the sun is up since the storage tank will provide water between pumpings. 

Some of our rural homes use residential fire sprinklers and this storage tank allows their wells to produce short duration bursts of high flows of water. What happens is they have a high flow high pressure pump feeding the fire sprinklers from the storage tank AND a low flow high pressure pump feeding the domestic system. Both in addition to the deep well pump which slowly fills the storage tank.

If you have iron in your well water, you could aerate the storage tank to get the iron to oxidize and settle out. I haven't seen this done but the concept should work.


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## Heem (Nov 3, 2009)

Great info, Highbeam, very interesting.


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## pybyr (Nov 3, 2009)

My household water comes from what a local well-man called an "antique water system" but it suggests a lot of possibilities for others.

My spring, which I am told by reliable sources, is older than my 1840 house, is 450 yards northwest of, and about 20 feet above, my basement.

What was here when I moved here... was not pretty... dead things in a cistern and rotted floor joists from its overflow-

but what I did is this:

a Norwesco 300 gallon tank with a float valve from Mc-Master-Carr for its inflow; a worn out shallow well jet pump then fakes enough pressure to take showers with

I am proudly ! Y2k ready ! , as the water will work even without the jet pump

If you have a deep well/ submersible, just get the Norwesco (whatever-hundreds-of-gallons size you are comfortable with for emergencies) tank, and put in the float valve.   Put it in the cellar.   Hook the float valve to one of your lines fed by your deep well.  Put a boiler drain spigot valve on the outlet of the tank.  You now have a cistern of immense capacity that you can tap into with no pump at all if the power is off.   And, as a bonus, it is a thermal mass of immense effectiveness, once it has acclimated to temperature, to hold your cellar at temp after the power has gone off.  And it costs less than a generator and takes less maintenance.


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