Hi all, For those of us who are on private wells dependent upon electric I'm wondering what, if any, alternate methods and techniques anyone has without using a generator to operate their well pump.
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11 years ago
Power for Well Pump
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11 years ago
Rope and bucket?
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11 years ago
Google up well hand pumps. A new one for my deep well would cost as much as a generator and I assume you'd have to pull your electric pump to use a hand pump.
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11 years ago
"John F. F." wrote in news:Zpdks.16351$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe25.iad:
What alternatives do you suppose there might be? You have an electric pump at the bottom of your well. It runs on 240VAC. If you don't have power from the power company, how are you going to get power to the pump, without either a generator, or a really really long extension cord?
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11 years ago
Well, for the well itself you're pretty much stuck. Whether there's an alternate water source depends greatly on location, location, location...here the answer is "basically, no".
For the house we fill up several containers when it looks like things could get bad for a while and count on it lasting long enough. When we have cattle that must be watered and it's over a day it's "make it happen somehow" whether that's the tractor over the fields to the city water station (we're fortunate in that regard of being within a distance that it is at least feasible) or the generator or whatever...
_IF_ were really going to be in the cattle business again for real, I'd probably dig a second well and have it be solar-powered. Back years ago before the submersible the windmill served but while they are off-grid in that regards they're very high maintenance and low volume so don't miss it that much...
Of course, as we've gotten older, often we just go to town for a night or two and just don't worry about it much.... :) Town loses power much less frequently and generally gets it back quicker.
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11 years ago
Depends on the well.
My family owned a small dairy farm in Oregon. After the Columbus day storm back in the 1960's, we had no electricity for more than a week. Dad used the farm tractor and a tap on the intake manifold to produce the vacuum to run the milking machines.
Then he drove the tractor to the well house and ran a hose down the shallow well to the water and hooked the hose to a milking machine. It pumped water up and filled a 5 gallon can of nice fresh well water. We filled other cans for storage. Worked great for a week.
You can only do this with a shallow well.
Paul
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11 years ago
YES. Just make sure the power is high enough for the pump. Most submercible pumps are 220V.
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11 years ago
According to comedian Steven Wright, " Take off a sweater real quick"
(Actual joke) Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity. If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick.
Read more:
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11 years ago
Used to be able to buy solar powered well pumps. Sunelco had them, but that was decades ago.
Lehmans used to have shallow well mechanical pumps.
Inverter, from the car battery.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
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11 years ago
Assuming your real need is for water and not just watching the pump run, you'd do the same thing as those who have municipal water: Fill the bathtub and miscellaneous containers.
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11 years ago
If yopu have a 1/2 HP well pump it will quite likely be 110 volts - and draw about 400 watts running and 800+ to start. An inverter would be feasible for that.
A 3/4 or 1HP pump is almost definitely going to be a 240 volt unit so you would need a 2500 VA surge capable 240 volt inverter - which will draw just over 200 amps from the battery to start the pump and close to 100 amps to run the pump. At 5 GPM the battery is good for something like 100 gallons of water on a real good day. The engine would need to be run at about 1500 RPM on most vehicles to hold that level of output for extended periods - and if it is a GM, you will be replacing the alternator next week if you run that kind of load for over about 20 minutes.
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11 years ago
I have a submersible now. It replaced a jet pump where the impeller (which is on the surface, just to be remedial) was powered by vertically mounted 3HP electric motor. That configuration, I've long thought, would be suitable for a gas motor, as long as it spinned in the same direction. Probably quite a few creative alternatives too.
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11 years ago
My submercible pump is down 370ft. It's a 1.5HP 220V. I did run it once from a generator when there was a long term power outage. I borrowed it from a neighbor, and it was a huge power plant on wheels that connected to the PTO shaft on my farm tractor. It worked fine. But I cant imagine trying to run it with an inverter. And even less on a solar panel, unless the panel is huge, with a bank of batteries and electronics.
The old farms used to have a windmill for these deep wells, and if the wind was not blowing, there were ways to spin the shaft in the well with a tractor, engine, or even a team of horses. Those days are long gone. If the power from the grid goes out, you're screwed, unless you have a large generator, and good supply of gas to run it. Because if the power goes out in the area, th gas stations have no way to sell gas.
The old ways were crude, but today's technology is really worse if there is a power outage. I dont like being dependent on a company and being helpless if they fail.
There's a saying "Only the strong survive". However, I think this one makes more sense. "Only the Smart survive".
I'm still considering designing or buying a wood powered steam engine. There's plenty of dead trees nearby. Even if the whole economy collapsed and there was no electric or gasoline, I could still get water out of my well and provide other electrical needs. The problem is that all this stuff is costly to buy or make, and the electric and other energy companies make sure they take enough of our money so that we can never afford to buy or build equipment to replace them. So day after day, year after year, we rely on them and few of us are prepared for the day the economy collapses or a major disaster wipes out our "sources for outside power".
With that in mind, I guess the real truth is this. "Only the Smart (and wealthy) survive". Sad but true!
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11 years ago
The strong will enslave the smart, and make the smart into servants, and workers.
With the economy (thank you, Democrats!) I havn't got enough cash flow to do anything except worry.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
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There's a saying "Only the strong survive". However, I think this one makes more sense. "Only the Smart survive".
I'm still considering designing or buying a wood powered steam engine. There's plenty of dead trees nearby. Even if the whole economy collapsed and there was no electric or gasoline, I could still get water out of my well and provide other electrical needs. The problem is that all this stuff is costly to buy or make, and the electric and other energy companies make sure they take enough of our money so that we can never afford to buy or build equipment to replace them. So day after day, year after year, we rely on them and few of us are prepared for the day the economy collapses or a major disaster wipes out our "sources for outside power".
With that in mind, I guess the real truth is this. "Only the Smart (and wealthy) survive". Sad but true!
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11 years ago
obviously the OP needs a generator! Since it likely wouldnt get used much a harbor freigh model is probably a good choice, and generators are a nice thing to have around, helped a family that had a home fire the power had been cut to the building, used the 12 volt output o charge some car batteries, its nice to have a little redundancy.
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11 years ago
Wrong. The old windmills were a piston pump, Operated by a "sucker rod" that when up and own run by the gear head on top of the tower. there was no rotation other than the axle the fan was attached to. If there was a way to make it work with horses, I never heard of it. I suppose it wouild be possible but highly unlikely.
Harry K
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11 years ago
Never seen a real windmill pimp, eh?? The windmill operated what is known as a "pump jack" which operated a plunger pump - just like the old hand operated pumps - so when the wind wasn't blowing you just connected the handle and pumped manually
The problem with steam is you need a boiler engineers papers to run it, and the boiler needs to be inspected at least annually - at considerable cost. Insurance is hellish expensive too. - and you NEED it.
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11 years ago
You're right about the sucker rod and all of that. Some also had a handle that you just hand pumped. However, there were geared devices that would raise and lower it. I saw such a thing at an antique machinery museum. This device could be run by any rotating shaft, meaning a tractor PTO, any motor or engine, a water wheel, and yes, a horse ring.
A horse ring looked similar to the pony rings used at carnivals where the ponies go around in a circle. But it was for larger horses, as well as donkeys, oxen, etc. They went in a circle, and the vertical shaft in the middle of the ring was connected to a horizontal shaft via gears. That shaft went outside of the ring and was connected to whatever needed power from a rotating shaft. One drawback was that the horses had to step over this horizontal shaft on every rotation. That took some training. If I recall, the later versions ran the shaft underground or overhead.
Look at these sites.
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To search for more: Google these two lines.
horse driven mill
horse driven pump
Here's a video
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11 years ago
Yep, those were the UPCs of the horse days, ran everything that could be connected to them.
I wasn't aware of the 'pump jack' one though. Thanks.
Harry K
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11 years ago
On 11/2/2012 11:38 AM, Harry K wrote: ...
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We had a pump jack on the old windmill, but by the time I remember it was an electric motor for use when the wind didn't blow steadily enough. It wouldn't have been too hard to put a gasoline engine back, though, if it had ever been such a long period w/o power _and_ wind as to have made it necessary, of course, but I don't recall it ever having been needed.
The windmill was relegated to the mists of history in the late 50s/early
60s w/ the advent of the larger well when we increased number of cattle to the point had to have more water than could produce from the windmill...--