Pumping water question

[Broadback]

At the bottom of my large garden there is a natural pond. I am wondering at the possibility of pumping water from it for watering. 2 obvious problems come to mind, first the water is often dirty, and always has bits of vegetation in it, is there any way I can ensure the pump does not clog? Secondly it would probably be more sensible to use a car battery to power the pump, can I get one that runs off 12v that is pretty powerful? If necessary, and I believe, because of the distance and drop, it would be, I could have a storage tank at an intermediate point, perhaps a tank sunk in the ground. Any one had any success or failure in doing this please?

[Harry Bloomfield]

Broadback has brought this to us :

You could make a strainer - something like a plastic box inside another plastic box, both perforated with gravel between.

How powerful is 'powerful'? You need to know the head or pumping height needed, as well as litres per minute. You can get small 12v pumps as used for caravan water supplies, either submersible type or an in line type.

Have you thought about using a small 240v (I know you said 12v) sump pump?

Another solution would be to use a wind driven pump.

[fred]

In article , Harry Bloomfield writes

Or a foul/dirty water pump, here's one but it's 240V:

?id=71445It would cope with solids but maybe not the weeds.

[John Stumbles]

You'd get a piddle of water from one of those. If you must use 12V look for boat bilge pumps e.g google 'Rule pump'

[manatbandq]

With intermediate storage, a piddle may be all he needs to refill it overnight.

MBQ

[simplegirl]

When I have used strainers it has lowered the performance of the pumps.

You might want reconsider the power for this project

-- simplegirl

[meow2222]

On one hand you want powerful for watering, on the other you want 12v to avoid wiring hassle. The 2 dont go together. Another maybe would be drip irrigation plus a wind pump. A drip system should work on intermittent piddle power.

NT

[Broadback]

OK, I have to accept that 12v will not cut the mustard, thanks. What made me think it would was an article that someone had beaten the draught regs by filling a barrel then using a pump powered by a battery to water their garden. Never believe all that you read it seems. Except here of course. :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

The previous poster is talking bollocks. A typical car starter motor is several bhp off 12v.

It can be done...the issue is the battery life.

You can work out the energy needed to lift - say - 700 liters of water to a roof top rtank - say 5m off th3 ground.

700 litres is 700kg, so the energy is 3500 kg/meters..a quick online convert has that as 9.5 watt hours Or in terms of 12v about 0.8Ah. Considering a decent heavy duty battery is 80Ah, it looks like one of those could at 100% efficiency pump about 70 tonnes of water up 5 meters.

In short you can do a heck of a lot with a 12v battery.

Watering requires that you can project (judging by my hose this afternoon) a stream of water about 5 meters high. I'd say the flow rate was about a liter a second,which I make to be a mere 50W. Ive got model planes that easily put out 100W of power off a 10v battery... all you need is a suitable PUMP and probably a gearbox.

I'd probably say get a pressure washer, and throw away the motor, and fit a decent 12v motor to it.

Or a hower pump/. Or indeed one of these

to ruin up to 4 showers in a motorhome..