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Pump to transfer water from pond to garden?

16 years ago

I posted this over in irrigation but no one is home.

I am trying to save water in draught stricken North Carolina. I have a french drain and roof water that I can collect in a small pond. The trench is currently open. My thought was to use a pump to transfer and pressurize the water to a hose for hand garden or landscape watering. I don't know much about pumps. My backyard landscaping (and house) would only be 70' away from my mini pond, and vegi garden etc more like 150' away. Total rise would only be 5'.

Could someone point me to some links or tell me what I would need to pull this off. I first thought I would bring power all the way to the pond for a submersible pump, but someone said I could set a pump (and watering hose) at my house and pull water through a pipe from the pond. Can a transfer pump prime that distance? Is there a clever way to shut a pump off from a distance? I know I can always connect shut off valves in my watering hose, but a remote kill switch might prevent letting an intermittent pump from running too long.

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Comments (4)

jtc001
16 years ago
I use a 3hp engine driven pump to move water. The problem is not moving the water - it is all the small stuff in open water that will clog nozzles and sprinklers. I have not found a good way to get rid of the dirt et al that is in the water!
davidandkasie
16 years ago
if this will be a pretty permanent setup, then a pool pump and sand filter is the way the go. total cost should be around 1500.00 if you DIY everything. is it worth that for you?

a decent pool pump runs about 200.00, the filter and sand about 500, then your PVC and fittings. the nice thing is a pool pump is designed for continuous running, so you would need to install a pressure tank after the filter and install a pressure switch on it to kill the pump. then everything is automatic. you could go with a shallow jet pump, but for a few bucks more a good continuous duty pool pump will last forever. teh 3/4 horse model my parents have will pump a good bit of water still at 60PSI.
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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.
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Depending on the flow rate the 2700 run of pipe becomes an issue. A sump pump would be a good alternative for a short run of pipe. With a 40 gpm flow rate the friction loss in 2700 ft of 1 1/2 inch pipe is 110 psi and the loss from elevation head is 4.3 psi for a total of 114 psi. With a 40 gpm flow rate the friction loss in 2700 ft of 2 in PVC is 32 psi plus 4.3 psi elevation loss for a total of 34 psi. The Honda WH20 high pressure pump will deliver about 40 gpm at 40 psi. The run time is about an hour per 0.8 gallon on board gasoline tankful. You would fill half of a 5000 gallon water tank in an hour with one run of the pump. You would need to use 2 inch pipe.
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chas045
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks folks. I'm only trying to do small back yard watering. We are real short of it here. 2or 3 thousand gal pond. The idea is really just to be a big inexpensive tank. I see the point of the pressure tank and sand filter but both are probably too expensive for me but I will have to think of some simple filtering.
fruitjarfla
16 years ago
My Koi pond of about 1400 gallons involves a skimmer and submersible pump to run the water to a waterfall, for looks and water circulation. The skimmer houses the pump with the water inlet filtered by a debris basket and plastic fibrous filter to keep the junk away from the pump inlets. The Little Giant Company pump that I use cost $170, 5/8 hp, and pumps 4,000 gallon per hour with a 5 ft. head. I've read stories about building a skimmer using a sunken 55 gal drum, but anything of size will work as long as there is a debris (larger stuff) catcher and filter. Suggest doing Google using - water garden pumps - as a starter to seen the many types of pumps, plumbing and accessories. If there is a Tractor Supply Company store that you can visit, suggest doing so. Look on internet for tractorsupply.com and click Agriculture. It also shows locations. Other places for information - major garden center or pool/pond store.

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