Unfortuntely for me, their pumps are only for 3 & 4" wells & mine is 2".

 

HH; the motor name plate on any electric motor will give the operating peramiters, voltage, amps and watts needed to run. system needs to be designed for the end result, meaning you need to know the motor that you are going to need and use so you can design the charging/operating system around the pump.

why would 3"or 2" suction diameter matter on the pump? suction is suction. Could you not reduce the diameter of the suction as it comes from the pump and reduce the diameter to 2" OD?

AmpsXvolts=watts

 

watts= volts x amps
How deep are you? Is it a sand point? That's what a lot of old cabins in MN and WI have. It takes a lot of juice to move water in these systems, especially if the point is clogged.

Berndog, you beat me too it. I think the set up he is talking about uses a sump pump to push the water out of the well, where as what you're probably thinking of is a jet pump that would suck the water from the well.

I haven't seen any capillary systems yet. If it works for the earth's tallest trees, then there should be some hope.

 

HH

how deep is the well? i did about an hour long search and could not locate a submersible DC powered pump in 2" diameter. I did come across above ground pumps that will work at 15' above water level.

 

HH,

That is the pump I have been using for about 6 years now.

Grundfos makes good stuff.

11SQF-2 pump, CU200 control box, IO101 box for generator backup. 5x Sharp 80 watt panels wired in series.

Pump pushes water from 200 ft below ground, 200 more feet up a hill to my storage tank.

My well isn't great, but if there is water in the hole and the sun is shining, water goes into my tank. It's amazing.

 

Also, you don't need batteries for this pump system. You just plug in the solar panels and the CU200 control box does the rest. As soon as you get good sunlight on the panels, the pump starts up and water starts flowing.

The only reason to add batteries would be if you wanted to pump water at night. This might happen if you have a very low production well and you couldn't get enough water during daylight, so the batteries would take over and continue to run the pump in the dark. In this case, you would want probably 4 times as much solar panel and battery capacity as the pump would use, so that the batteries could run the pump all night without draining below 50%, and then the panels would supply enough power during daylight to both pump water and recharge the batteries at the same time.

If you have a decent well (I don't, yet) you should be able to get enough water easily during the day to supply your needs and you wouldn't need batteries at all. Much simpler and cheaper.

 

And, if you needed to pump water at night, it would be much cheaper and simpler to add the IO101 box and just run a generator than to buy all of the extra panels and batteries and charge controllers. I have run my well at night on a small Honda generator.

The only reason not to do this would be if you thought gasoline would not be available.

 

A 3" diameter pump won't fit down a 2" diameter pipe.

I've a rock well which is 186ft down but pushes the water up to 113ft & drop pipe is at 117ft. The J-pump is a Sta-Rite 2hp, 3 stage that uses 240VAC at 11amp. The pump provides plenty of water. I've a 5500watt generator which runs the pump just fine in emergencies as long as I can get fuel for it.

A jet or J-pump works by shooting water down & get more back up. 2" well casing with 1" drop pipe. And there is a foot valve at the bottom of the drop pipe to prevent loosing prime.

Ever sit in line at a gas station for an hour only to be allowed to get 10 gallons of gas at a time? And spend four hours doing it?

I just would like to come up with something different. Answer might have to be a holding tank for water.

I have a 100gal livestock water tank that I can make a lid for & could use a 12VDC Surflo pump with. Or set up some 35 or 55 gal drums elevated alittle that they will gravity feed. But those could only be for short term outages.

And for the generator, I have 2.5 & 5gal gas cans for a total of 35gal of gas.

 

http://legacy.shurflo.com/pages/new_industrial/industrial/agriculture/subcategories/9300.html


another is nemosolar.com. the nemo can not take continuous running. about an hour before you need to let it cool or the seal around the motor will rupture and let water into the motor case. but if used properly will last many years for cheap. I recommend 24 volt but have used the 12 volt successfully.

 

Both of those are for 4" diameter wells.

 

Not sure about the amps, volts, or watts but it looks like 1GI power.

 

Its looking like the most economical route for me to go is a LP generator just for the well pump. I've seen 20lb/5gal LP bottles over ten years old & the fuel worked. 5gal LP is roughly the same as 5gal gasoline as per BTUs.

http://www.propanegasgenerator.com/propane-generators

Manual start generator used exclusely for the well pump & bet a 20lb bottle would last me a minimum of two weeks. Possibly even a month per bottle. Several bottles would last months without electricity, I would need one of the 6000/7000 generators for the 240VAC/30amp plug for the well pump. The 5500 gasoline generator I have will run the well pump no problem & the two should use the same plug.

 

An option, though wouldn't be cheap, would be solar panels charging batteries. Batteries powering a DC motor. And the motor running a generator head to power the existing J-pump.

 

HH
try to find an Onan Generator out of an old Wrecked/dismantled RV 5/6.5 KW they can be Modified to run on LP or Natural Gas as well as Gasoline they are Called Tri Fueled. you can Modify the Carb yourself or find the Carb on the internet the generator runs at 1800 rpm (4 pole Generators) and are relatively quiet with the muffler installed.look on the SmokStak Forum for Onan generators for help to repair setup and hook them up and how to modify them for LP/NAT. Gas Doug.

 

WELL (pun intended), I've decided what I'm going to do about my water well pump. Not my ideal choice but a reasonable, realistic, & cost effective choice. Even though I have a gasoline 5500watt generator with a 240VAC 30amp outlet I'm going to get a second generator. It'll be a 6000watt with the same 240VAC 30amp outlet & will be LP.

I just checked & have 11 of the 20lb/5gal LP bottles. Not all have the newer valves but those can be traded in at the convenience stores. Subtract one that will stay on the BBQ grill & that's 10 of them or 50gal of LP. By using the 20lb bottles the generator will remain portable versus stationary as it would have to be using the larger tanks.

And for the Coleman 5500 I have 2.5 & 5gal cans equalling 32.5gal.

So between the two generators I should be able to go awhile before needing to try to refill containers.

Plus there's the 520watt solar system.

 

I'm not sure what your site is like, but is a windmill out of the question?

http://www.ironmanwindmill.com/

 

Would be absolutely useless to me. Only time we get wind is when there is a storm. They are normally short & severe and often go weeks without a storm.