May I compare my well water setup to yours (3,094 usable gallons)

[SF Man]

It's even worse than that because it shuts off every few minutes; then it waits exactly 1/2 hour, and then kicks on again.

In two days, the tanks rose about 20 inches, which, at 40 gallons calculated per inch, is 800 gallons ... or 400 gallons a day.

As you said, my only choice is to conserve.

Later, when money permits, I will consider drilling another well (the property has an elevation change of about 400 feet, so, what I can do is put the well at the low point of the property and pump it up to the house).

[Caesar Romano]

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:57:02 -0700, SF Man wrote Re Re: May I compare my well water setup to yours (3,094 usable gallons):

Is drilling the well deeper an option?

1/2" to 1" per day

[Caesar Romano]

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:59:12 -0700, SF Man wrote Re Re: May I compare my well water setup to yours (3,094 usable gallons):

There is not guarantee that you will hit water at the low point of the property.

[G. Morgan]

By selling electricity back to the grid, and use the savings to drill a deeper well!

[trader4]

No one has commented on this yet and I think it could be important. How exactly does it shut off and wait 30 mins? The issue here is normally a well pump is designed to run continously and not run out of water. But since you have those huge tanks it appears this well was set up to accomodate low flow from the start. If so, it may have some special mechanism to cycle the pump. So some thoughts:

A - If it has some special cycling arrangement, is it possible that is what's screwed up and it might be short cycling even though the well has not really run out of water?

B - If doesn't have some special cycling arrangement, what is shutting it off and keeping it off for 30 mins? If it's that the pump runs dry and is overheating, I'd think you'd want to institute some kind of cycling system, perhaps with a timer, to stop that from happening. I doubt a submersible pump likes to run dry, overheat, shutdown. It relies on the water to cool it.

[G. Morgan]

I was thinking if your 'plant' is big enough you can sell electrons back to the power company, plus the savings you could put the $$ towards a new well.

7 years! That's a no-brainier if you plan to live there longer than that. Then you'll be "off-grid" if need be, and have a trusty new water well too. If your capacity is high enough, you'll have an income stream with Edison Electric selling *them* energy.

I pay .14/KWh no matter how much I use (I'm on the Texas grid).

[Harry K]

Or is it. IIRC you said your pump requires a 30minute "off" befoe it starts again. Your well may be recovering a lot faster than that.

You perhaps could put the pump on an adjustable timer so it shuts off _before_ it runs out of water and then pumps again in, say, 15 minutes.

Harry K

[DD_BobK]

Good comments

..perhaps his "short cycling" & "dead period" is really a pump control issue and not completely a well recharge issue.

Getting the pump behavior to match the well / aquifer behavior might be easiest way to maximize water output.

cheers Bob

[DD_BobK]

SNIP

Long term pool experience:

Large residential pool in OC, SoCal.

20x40 , all day exposure (yard / pool orientation, East /West)

Winter time usage ~1/2" per week Summer time water usage ~1/4" to 1/2" per day. Occasional high wind / hot weather usage as high as 1" per day.

Suggestion: Cover pool to reduce water loss & improve "swimability".

cheers Bob

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

Fog is water. Your plants/landscape should be capable of collecting the fog. Or you need to xeriscape.

Or you could collect some of the fog for additional free supply of water.

I can't imagine it is necessary to run the cleaning system every day, especially if you were to invest in a pool cover. Additionally, the pool cover would tend to heat the water (if it is a dark cover) so you save both water and electricity.

I'd speak to several pool companies and see if your cleaning system can be put on a managed controller to run for one hour on, one hour off (and that would be my worst case scenario) which once again lowers your electric bills plus lowers your maintenance costs. You might be able to even go one day without running the thing and the next running sporadically. Just seems like you are running it too long.

Another option is to get time of day billing for the electricity and run the pumps off-peak.

Have you spoken to your power provider about getting an energy audit (currently for PGE they are $99 for a full house audit and then you may qualify for up to $9000 in rebates for upgrades, but they may also have suggestions about your pool setup

[DD_BobK]

SF Man-

I missed your description of your pool pumps' duty cycles.

Having lived in SoCal homes with pools for nearly 30 years (bummer, I know)...... there is no way you need to run two pumps (2+ hp) for 15 hours per day to keep the pool clean.

It makes no sense to run your solar panels 15 hrs per day.

Your entire setup is a ridiculous waste of energy.

cheers Bob

[trader4]

I missed the pool pump part. I agree it would have to be one hell of a pool to need two 2+hp pumps runningg 15 hours a day to keep it clean. And I think he said he was paying

25c per kwh for electricity.

48,000 gallon pool here, DE filter and it can be kept clean with two 1 hp pumps. One is the main one and it needs to run about 6 hours a day. The other is the Polaris cleaner booster pump and it runs about 1/3 of that time, averageing maybe 2 or 3 hours a day. It actually runs the full 6 hours, but only every second or third day.

It's actually running more now because it's now set up for solar heat. But without needing that, the above schedule worked fine. Of course it does depend on the environment, what's around to blow into the pool, usage, etc.

I'd be interested in knowing if he's tried backing off the amount of filtering. That's what I did. The general rule of thumb is that the filtering should move water equal to the pool volume each day. But found out I could get away with less than that.

[SF Man]

Understood.

[SF Man]

SEE ATTACHED PHOTOS:

1. House Side: Pump Side: Well Side: If 'you' can make sense of the setup, I'd LOVE to know how it actually works!

Why, for example, are their FOUR boxes for the well?

This one of those four boxes does the 30-minute timeout when the well runs dry:

• Pumptec Model 5800020116 P/N 223122101 Rev 4

• The NoLoad Sensor Pump Protection System for Franklin Submersible Motors

Another box 'must' run the motor itself ... I think it's this one:

• Franklin Electric Model 2801074915, 3/4 HP, 230 volts

A third box is clearly the circuit breaker for the well pump electrical feed.

The last box, has no writing on it, and I don't know 'what' it does.

If YOU (or anyone) knows what these four "well boxes" do, please edify me!

:)

[SF Man]

Yes. That's possible. However, I can 'reset' the cycle, at will, simply by turning off the power via the circuit breaker.

When I do that, it pumps again, but, all the action is consistent with the fact that it's running out of water.

For example, if I cycle it right away, almost nothing is pumped before it shuts off; and if I switch it back on a bit later, more water is pumped. The longer I wait, the more water is pumped before it shuts off (in a few minutes).

This, I don't think, is the problem.

But, there are FOUR boxes (that could go bad).

1. One is the circuit breaker
2. The other is the no-load sensor (discussed above).

I'm not sure 'what' the other two are:

1. One seems to be the pump controller itself.
2. I'm not sure 'what' that fourth box is.

See photos here:

1. House Side: Pump Side: Well Side:

[SF Man]

I guess that's 'always' an option! :)

I would start 400 feet lower so the well wouldn't need to be as deep. But, then the piping would be a few hundred yards in length. :(

Interesting. For my pool, 1 inch is about 500 gallons. So that's jives with what I'm seeing (500 gallons every few days).

[SF Man]

This meshes with what I'm seeing.

For me, 1 inch is 500 gallons of pool and I lose about an inch every few days.

I think a pool cover is in order!

[SF Man]

Ah. That idea went deeper than I at first imagined!

[SF Man]

It will work - but - just to let you know, out here, in California, you're not allowed to 'make money' on the solar panels.

You can bring your electricity down to zero; but you can't go lower.

But, with the last KWh costing over 45 cents, you don't have to bring it to zero to 'save money'.

Wow. We pay over 45 cents a KWh for the last two weeks, and about 12 cents per KWh for the first week or so.

[SF Man]

Bearing in mind that it never rains here, but when it does, it pours ...

Some of my neighbors have 30,000 gallon water runoff tanks (basically concrete bunkers sunk into the ground).

They collect runoff water during the rainy seasin (e.g., from the roof), and funnel it into these holding tanks.

I'm not sure how long 30,000 gallons would last (with evaporation and leakage) but I might need to consider that for irrigation in the future.