If you use a 2 inch line and a 4 HP pump, you should have tons of water--unless your garden is quite large (as in over 1 acre). Using a 2 inch line, friction loss in the line will be quite small. Your main loss will be elevation. You would lose about 22 psi between the pressure at the pump outlet and the pressure at the top of the hill (50 ft. of elevation).

Take a look at the website of your pump manufacturer to see what the flow rates are at different pressures at the pump outlet. This should give you an approximate flow rate, then subtract the pressure loss from elevation (22psi) to see what your resulting flow rate and pressure will be at the top of the hill. This will vary. For example, if you want 40 psi at the top, you would need 62 psi. at the pump, and check the resulting flow rate of the pump at 62 psi.

The 26 feet of elevation at the suction is based on air pressure at sea level--air pressure will raise water about 26 feet at sea level in a vaccum, like a giant barometer. So, your 6 foot lift to the pump will be no problem. On the outlet side, your pressure declines at the outlet of the line based on the elevation from the pump to the discharge and the friction loss of the water line. Larger lines and shorter distances reduce friction losses, and a 2" line is pretty large unless you are moving pretty big volumes.

You could look into a hydro-ram system. A hydro-ram uses the energy from moving water to move a portion of the water to a higher elevation. It wouldn't work real fast, but if you had a cistern or tank above or at your garden, then the hydro-ram could fill that up when you weren't watering the garden. Another thought is the old fashion windmill waterpump. Saves having to put in electricity.

There would have to be significant fall in the creek to lift water a hundred feet, I would think.

How close is your juice to the pump-site? Because 4hp is a lot of watts, and if you are running the juice much distance you'll need massive cordage. I presume you want such a big pump because you want a very high volume to directly water the garden? But another option is a low-flow 12v submersible with a holding tank at the garden. A solar panel at the pump site and the pump runs whenever the sun shines, keeping the tank full. You could use one of those cattle-watering tanks.

Sorry; I should have mentioned that the pump has a gasoline engine--a Tecumseh, I think.

Ed

Perhaps you are thinking of using a smaller discharge hose that works more like a garden hose hand held? I can't imagine handling all the water from a large discharge hose unless you were filling a tank or usuing trench irrigation.

you sould have no trouble setting something up ed, we had an electric submersable that drew water from 30 meters down in a bore and that was with 1"&3/4 pipe.

from the creek the pick up end will need some sort of screen to keep out larger things that may get sucked up, and also it will need to be on a floatation of sorts to keep it about mid depth, and always away from the bottom of the creek. your pump man should be able to help you there as well, a simple float drum of about 1 gallon size may do to hold the inlet pipe up.

also look at a solar battery powered pump if you have the pump in a sunny spot sun or good sun for the panel, the pump will be a whole lot qieter than a petrol or diesel engined pump, and whole lot easier to start with the flick of a switch.

other things to consider maybe? pump to a water tank and then use gravity feed to drip irrigate the gardens and trees? that way the pump isn't being affected by water restriction at the nozzle end. if you wanted to get a bit fancier you could set up 2 float switches in the tank so the pump fills the tank automatically when the level falls and stop pumping when the full height is reached, not sure on the technical side of things but maybe the switching could be a wireless set up between the tank and the pump?

anyhow might be some thoughts there for you?

seasons greeting and a happy new year.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

Gas engine? Lot of smog and wasted energy to pump water. Can't imagine a less efficient way to do it.

Are you planning to have a tank in any case? Because you can get a low-flow pump for under $200 and pv panels are not so expensive anymore......

Well...to the efficiency point...the choices are 1) drill a well (couple thousand bucks), 2) dump a bunch of city water on the garden ($25-ish a month and the chemistry trouble), or 3) take the pump-and-hose-and fuel hit (about $300 plus five or ten gallons of gas a year).

Solar's out...my acreage is thickly wooded, except for the garden. The creek's too low-flow for a ram. The creek is several hundred yards from power, so the voltage drop across that distance of extension cords would toast an electric motor, chop-chop.

I figured a two-inch hose up the hill to a 3/4" reducer at the garden would do the trick. From there to a handheld or a network of trickle hoses.

Yeah, I wish I could do it without burning gasoline. A little cold fusion reactor or a gigantic Glass Drinking Bird that bobs back and forth between the creek and the tomatoes would be ideal, but...

Ed

Isn't someone selling a tiny nuclear reactor now? Maybe I'm confusing reality with my nightmares......

How would you operate the pump if you drilled a well at the garden-site?

how much would it cost to have power run to that point near the creek? just another option need to look at the costs of a good petrol/diesel pump against that of an electric that would do the job. i reckon a 1" pump should push enough water for your needs. the idea of a tank for gravity feed still no option? at least that way you go down the hill start the pump fill the tank then turn the pump off and then let gravity water the gardens while you put your feet up or do something else.

anyhow just some more thoughts.

len

That tank/gravity feed suggestion is pretty cool, Len...I think I can score an old cattle water tank around here for next to nothing, and I like the idea of putting my feet up and munching on asparagus while Isaac Newton runs the hose.

And if I drilled a well at the garden I was intending to put in an old-fashioned hand pump.

Or: I could just build a big trebuchet and fling the water up the hill...this is Tennessee, after all, you can still own just about any armament you'd care to name, even a big siege engine.

Ed

That was my suggestion, in fact, but de nada anyhow (I'm guessing you'll need the tank no matter how the water is pumped). I like the trebuchet idea better than the mini-reactor, BTW. If a hand pump could lift the water from the water-table, then it could push it from the creek even easier. Maybe if you clear enough trees building the trebuchet (including the ones burned in the forging of the metal parts) there'd be enough sun for a pv panel.

Interesting discussion.

For some of us in the high deserts the idea of just going to the creek and getting water without going through a thirty thousand dollar permitting process is just amazing.

If you don't need a permit to get the water can you not just drag enough hose upstream to an altitude that will allow gravity to do the job? Some water in our community, for those who have the rights, comes via canal from a diversion about 20 miles upstream.

I'm not too sure what you mean exactly by your setup the way you describe it, but I can tell you that a suction pump cannot raise water more than 34 feet no matter how much power you have. With a suction pump, what's really happening in terms of the physics is the pressure from the atmosphere is pushing down on the water, and this pressure is redirected to lift the water up. But after a certain height, the pressure from the water equals the pressure of the atmosphere and the water cannot be lifted further. And it is solely a matter of elevation with regards to this; the pipe length is only important in terms of cost and friction.

again I don't really understand exactly what you mean with your descriptions, but if you plan on using one suction-based pump, forget about it.

Pumps that lift water higher than the 34-foot limit are usually centrifugal or PUSH the water with a piston (as opposed to creating a vaccuum or sucking with the piston)

if the pump you describe is the latter type, and you mean to say that the pump cannot pump water higher than 98 feet, then you should be fine. What matters is the total elevation (or change in elevation, as it were). Like I said, the length of the pipe will only matter in terms of cost and friction, i.e. you'll get a slower flow rate for the same amount of power output by the pump the longer the pipe is. Of course after a certain pipe length the pump will eventually basically stop working because it will have so much friction to work against and so much water to move even if you're not exceeding the maximum elevation - but this won't happen with the 300 feet of pipe you describe.

They do make hand-pumps with a drop-rod to operate a piston submerged in the well. I think perhaps those can operate effectively to around 100 feet. Another thing maybe worth considering is the likely life-span of an ICE-powered pump at such a cheap price. If it's anything like most homeowner-grade ICE gadgets it won't operate reliably for very long. Which makes me think of a great idea for some manufacturer: a high quality ICE module that fits with a plethora of specific remote tools: pumps, grinders, small sawmills, grain-mills, maybe even little walk-behind harvesters and sickle-bar mowers. So you put the money and technology into one unit rather than repeating the power plant all over the homestead.

I am not an engineer, however this has been an interesting read. If fact, I liked it enough to do a little surfing and there is a good web site from Clemson Univ here in SC.
Google "water ram" and it will pop up in either page 1 or 2. They have some photos of a pump in a stream and it does not look like it is moving that fast.
Another thought: Do you own the land on BOTH SIDES of the creek? If so you might be to go upstream and build a damn for a catchment. You could them run your drive pipe pullinbg water OFF THE BOTTOM of the damn. It would increase your water pressure quite a bit.

This if fun playing around with.

1eyedJack and the Dawg

Well, the creek gradient is about twenty feet or less per mile here; my house and garden are on a knoll looking across a small valley at the mountains of the Cherokee National Forest, and the creek winds across the flatlands below towards a tributary of the Tennessee River.

So the closest point where the creek is actually uphill of my garden is about three miles back up the valley. Not sure I can afford that much hose, and given the state of the arms race and the ill will for the TVA around here I don't guess my neighbors up that way will allow me to dam anything anytime soon. You ought to see what they did to the last tribe of beavers that moved in.

That whole water rights issue is a jar of worms I won't unscrew. Thirty thousand dollars' worth of permits to take water out of a creek that runs across your own land? In Tennessee if it flows, grows, or blows across your place, it's yours.

Ed

If you can't raise the bridge, lower the river, I.E. move the garden to the creek? Just a thought.

I see this post is from years ago, but we have run into the same issue at our house in middle tennessee. I'm just curious as to what you decided to do.

I have the same situation except that the creek is about 5 feet lower than the garden and at a distance of 10-15 feet. I already have the pipes.

I was curious if this was possible- for me to water the lawn from a creek or river that is about 20 feel below the yard.

I was going to go to Harbor Freight and buy a pump but is seems like it will not work.

All of this discussion is making just turning on the hose more and more likely although it does seem a shame not to use untreated water that is kind of close.

I'll have to ask those who are a little more practical in their knowledge- I looked at that Clemson University site and I'd have to go back to school to make sense of it.

At least in Omar's position, I think a standard 275 gallon, square water tank sitting on a raised platform might do the trick. Sounds like we're in a similar situation and my plan is to build a small platform, 5 feet or so off the ground that is higher than all of my garden beds. I will use a pump to fill the tank when the stream is really full and then just gravity feed the water to the tanks with drip irrigation or by hose. The tanks are widely used in the Agriculture industry and can be easily sourced through local farmers.