Anyone have information on how to capture ground water for use on my lawn. I have a small stream that flows next to my house. I also have a sump in my basement which I calculated to pass about 24K gallons per day. Its probably a bit less than that, but it seems sufficient to work with.
I calculated that I can water a section of my lawn with about
3600gallons. So I figure a 4000g tank should be good. Or even 2000g for starters.
Anyone know where I should look to get started on a project like this!?
It sounds like you have a nice sandy layer carrying water below you yard. You could consider "sand point"s, either "driven" or
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The Brady units are amazingly cheap.
If you really have 1000 gallons/hour passing through your sump, a pump intake there could supply a properly designed sprinkler system. Just make sure the sprinkler water demand stays under the minimum water flow.
Thats an excellent suggestion. I still need to filter the particulates out. It might be better to have a small 50gallon tank outside. I already have 2 pumps in the pit, I doubt I could fit a 3rd.
Ill have to redo the piping a bit though. Probably can only run 2 heads at once.
That's what I was thinking to. In most places there are fairly tight restrictions on taking water from natural streams. If it is allowed, that sounds like the easy solution.
I'd also be amazed if his sump pump is pumping anywhere near 1000 gallons an hour. That's an incredible amount of water. And unless it's available year round at a substantial rate, it can't always be used for irrigation.
While it might be nice to collect and use rainwater, from a practical standpoint, I doubt it's practical compared to drilling a well. With a well, you have water available regardless of the weather and lots of it. As the OP noted, to water a reasonable size lawn can easily take several thousand gallons. If you compare the cost of the tank, installation, the piping/ trenching, etc necessary to collect the water from the gutters, etc to the simplicity of a well, I think the well will easily win out. Especially when you consider the tank gets filled up when it rains, which is when the lawn is already getting watered. Then, you have one watering from the tank, after that, you're back to waiting for rain. Seems of very little use for all the trouble.
I wouldn't be taking anymore than I am putting into it. I will have to check with the city. But is VERY small. Its mostly just water ejected from the local homes. there is a constant source somewhere around here though. Its only about 3" deep. Not a proper stream I guess. but its big enough that the side of my house cant be used for anything because there is always 3" of water passing across the ground...
I'm in Michigan so I don't need the water year around. Only in the summer months. I think my numbers are accurate. Well my sprinkler numbers were off. Each head is only 3gpm, not 30gpm, so a ~350gallon tank would suffice.
In fact, with my heads only requiring about 18GPM, I should be able to come right off the sump pit with maybe a small 15 gallon resovoir so there is always water available for my sprinkler pump.
Not looking for rain water. Like I said, I have a small stream running next to my house. That should be an indication of the level of water in the ground here. My sump runs about every 10 minutes.
After correcting my sprinkler head mistake I believe I will switch back to using the water from my sump pit. I will add a temporary storage tank outside, and a 2nd pump. Should be fun :)
I recalculated based on volume of water displaced. Still an estimate. My new value is 14,230 gallons per day. So you were correct in this. This number is more accurate.
That's still a lot of water, if it is during the dry months. I would suggest a sprinkler pump with the pickup in the sump. Limit the number of heads on each zone to keep the water needs less than the sump flow. Use a pressure tank and switch to control the pump so that it shuts off when the pressure gets high, unless the flow needed is near what the pump can provide. The sump pumps probably do not provide enough pressure to run sprinklers properly.
It sure is a lot of water for a sump pump to be running constantly.
I would suggest a
I'd also recalculate the amount of water needed to irrigate the lawn. A lawn needs about an inch of water to do a good watering For any reasonable size lawn, that translates into something more like your original number of 3600 gallons, not 350, which would be OK for watering a garden. To put an inch down on 5,000 sq ft, requires 3100 gallons.
Coarrect. The normal sump pump provides flow and only minimal pressure. They will not come close to running a sprinkler. A pressure tank or a constant pressure controller will be required and if the flow is less than pump output, a large storage tank will also be needed.
Coarrect. The normal sump pump provides flow and only minimal pressure. They will not come close to running a sprinkler. A pressure tank or a constant pressure controller will be required and if the flow is less than pump output, a large storage tank will also be needed.
I used an above ground swimming pool (12x3) for a tank on my first system. Sump pump filled it gradually - sprinkler pump emptied it faster. It did have significant algea growth until I covered it with black plastic. I then installed several sand points and got rid of the pool.
It certainly is a lot of water. Thats why I thought of this in the first place. The water is just running into the stream making it bigger and at the same time I am paying $300 water bill if I water the lawn fully.
The sump water by my calculations is not enough to run a full single zone of my sprinkler system. I did not do that proper calculations for how much it takes to put an inch of water down. I just run each zone for
20mins. 6 hunter heads with 3GPM is 360 gallons. anyway, its 18GPM which is more than I can get out of my sump pit. Sump is only doing about
10GPM. For a 20min run im going to need 160 more gallons than the sump can provide. So I'll need a 160 gallon tank filled before each 20minute run.
This has the added bonus of keeping more water out of the stream next to my house. Its much more of a swamp than a stream and it breeds mosquitoes...
My front lawn is about 6' higher than the stream and my back lawn slopes down to stream level.
So I am targeting a perhaps 1/2HP Jet pump that does 30-50PSI. No pressure tank, just a 200 gallon tank before the pump. Sump will dump into water tank, jet pump will take it from the tank. I need to be able to blow it out since it freezes in Michigan.
Current issue is finding a 200 gallon tank of some sort. Im looking at putting down a footer and getting a tall skinny tank next to my house. You cant see it from the street and no windows on that side and trees all around. I could do a cistern. Just looking to keep it simple. It should pay for itself in 1 summer.
Once again, if it were me, I'd be looking at simply having a shallow irrigation well drilled. With all that water around, a 30 or 40 ft well should do it. It's not all that expensive compared to $300 bills for lawn watering, and a whole lot simpler than mucking around with cobbled together pumps, tanks, and who knows what, to try to use the sump pump. Plus, it's always available and not dependent on a sump pump always having enough water.
I am in pittsburgh but those 50 gallon plastic drums are everwhere, check craiglist.
food and all sorts of stuff come in them.
if you can i would install a gravity drain line from basement sump pump to stream so a power outage or pump failure doesnt leave you with a flooded basement.....
You think I can get 18GPM from a shallow well at the side of my house? How many holes do you think I will need to dig? The sump and tank is sure fire. The well concerns me. Although if I have 10GPM at 10' deep, you think I could get more at deeper depth?
One side benefit of using the sump water is that its not running in my backyard anymore. Reducing the swamp a bit. Admittedly this is only while I am water the grass which is not that much.
I think I will look into the shallow well. Considering the price of the tank, winterizing it, and a concrete pad capable of holding 2500lbs or so the well is looking good even if I have to dig a few...
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