Hi stephanieelaine, If you put the pump inside the bucket it must be submersible; if it is outside the bucket then centrifugal will do. A centrifugal pump can be mounted on the balcony itself & will easily draw the water up 10 feet from your tank. You can probably wire & monitor it better from the growing balcony as will be checking on plants there. You can run a centrifugal pump dry, but if the impeller is plastic it can eventually deform from the friction heat. If your water supply is an outdoor faucet near that proposed 5 gallon bucket placement site you can probably plumb it to a centrifugal pump sitting up on your balcony & wire the timer in to the pump. Submersibles are not meant to run dry for long stretches; sorry don't know particulars on your chosen brand. You usually use a check valve in the water tank that is connected to the feed pipe going into the pump; to keep from having to prime the pump every time go to use it. Put a screw on filter housing (so can clean inner screen out) somewhere before any water actually reaches the drip emitters to keep from clogging up. Use a pressure regulator at the outflow end of the pump. Match the regulator of the water pressure to the ratings of your drip emitters so you are not over powering their ability to release water from their holes. This is pretty simple sizing of the elements in a system, so don't be put off. I would say determine which pump can lift the water to the height you require & then work backward from the specifications of the total drip emitters you plan to use to size a pressure regulator. Emitters with built in diaphragms assure it that you will receive equal water outflow, irregardless of the planting height differentials. Put a removable end cap on the irrigation tube so can purge any algae that builds up inside, or it can block an emitter. If use an end cap that can be adjusted to bleed off some flowing water then it will let you release excess pressure if you find system design is flawed.

Not sure what kind of system your making(yeah its a drip but there are so many ways to do things). I designed but never built a drip system using buckets and totes. It worked like this: The bottom and larger tote was the main reservoir and was set below the plant bucket level. There was a smaller tote/reservoir on top(above the level of the plants). Water was pumped up to the upper reservoir and then gravity feed the drip system. The water/nut. solution then drained down the lines to the plants. The buckets the plant s were in was set above the full water level of the main reservoir so when the water drained down it would end up back in the main reservoir. There is an over flow in the smaller reservoir so if for some reason the pump does not shut off you do not get a mess. I liked the way this worked in my head much better then a pressurized drip system because a clogged line could cause a mess since the pressure will force extra water through the other holes at a faster rate then normal. Gravity generally will not force something at a lot of pressure. To control the flow of the water I added a simple shut off valve and opened or closed it to change the flow rate. Simple and should work well. If anyone sees a flaw with this design feel free to contact me. Like I said I never built it so I have not had a chance to really work out the bugs.

Thanks.. I've worked with just enough water pumps to confuse me on the varieties of configurations. Obviously I'm not looking at these old pump starters. I had glanced at the system once a few years back, it was a poor install from the start and deteriorated from there. These are on my fathers property across the country from me. He has a series of ponds and waterfalls in a landscaping scheme. I am just attempting to build a new control set-up with a few more options for him before I travel to his to his home. I am going to assume they are standard 2 wire pumps and continue on with the build.

I'm having a hard time understanding some of what you are saying. If I understand which pump you have, it's going to be drawing over 19 amps continuous when wired for 115v. You shouldn't be putting that on a 20A circuit, The breaker and the wiring would need to be larger. The other option would be to run the pump on 230V (it has that option I think), in which case it would work fine on a 15A (or larger) circuit. Yes, the dryer should never have been split across two breakers. It would be surprising it even worked as an electric clothes dryer would trip a 20A breaker in short order. The other scary thing is what appears to be 12G wire connected to the other side of the 40A breaker. This is a MASSIVE no-no and could cause a fire. The green wire should definitely be connected to the ground bus. Note that a detached garage with multiple circuits like this ABSOLUTELY requires its own grounding system (rods). Depending on when this was constructed and what else is connected between the house and the garage, it is required that this panel be fed with separate grounds and neutrals and maintains those separate (yours are not). The current code requires it to be separate (even if there are no other wires or pipes between the structures). If the panel is spec'd for the GE thin breakers, you can use them. There's no performance difference really. They make specific handle ties to allow you to feed 240V loads with them. Note that both thin breakers fit on the same 120V leg, so you need to use two thins that are in different "thick" positions and then use the handle tie to join them together (they make ones that do two adjacent breakers or noes that reach around the two inner breakers and get the outer breaker, if you catch what I am satin).