is this site worth developing?

[mike_belben]

im new to water power, curious what could reasonably be expected for wattage from this stream and if its worth of the effort to harvest power or just use it for irrigation. 

flows from my neighbors pond onto his logging road, then dips left into my property and bisects my long skinny lot into front and back.



i cant get to rear of lot without crossing stream.  most of it flows under ground, then pops up into a few branches here


unifies for a short bit


then exits into next neighbors yard. 


flows most of the year, this is avg to high flow shown.  not a lot of slope to the property, and not too much room to damn it up.  maybe 2 feet, 4 at the max before it creates problems with access road to rear of property.

what do you think? ive got a substantial battery bank in mind.

[mike_belben]

75 views and not a single opinion?  this is the quietest crowd i know. 

[jlt]

With low head you need a lot of volume to make any power. If you have The flow and the head figured out an estimate could be made for your power out put.
 
Ampair makes a small in stream turbine that might work for you. But the cost is about 1K . With that much money you could by a THOUSAD Watts of solar panels.
       JLT

[XeonPony]

As said above you need either a lot of drop or alot of flow, you got neither by the looks of it, sorry mate best look into solar and a good gen set.

[mike_belben]

the neighbor has it dammed just to the right of my first image and its easily the size of a swimming pool flowing out of a 4" pipe with about 3 feet of head.  that worth anything?   

[keithturtle]

Quantify your available flow in gallons per minute or cubic feet per second, and measure how much drop you can achieve in a short distance.  You need these numbers to answer your question.

Turtle

[mike_belben]

im a thousand miles away so thatll be a while. 

thanks for your time.

[hydrosun]

If you have access to the grid it isn't worth doing the hydro. If you do a solar system and have to run a generator all winter it might cut down run time of the generator and allow a smaller battery bank if you have a small trickle charge from a hydro. If you can get 4 feet of head and do a water wheel or propeller in a pipe you could get 20 watts if you have a 50 gallons per minute flow. I'm guessing from your photo that the stream is moving slowly so the flow is low.
So whether it is worthwhile it depends on how much power you will use and if you will be running a generator anyway.
Chris

[kenneth keen]

As Keith Turtle said you need to work out your flow, but I expect that most of the others don't like to disappoint you by saying that this project will probably not get you enough power to get a radio going! You could try to work out other alternative uses for the water, more useful could be to irrigate or deliver fresh water for livestock. Remember water is perhaps the most valuable commodity any of us could "own".

Have you already gone silent?

[thirteen]

What is the most fall you could get on your property? The biggest thing is like the volume you will need. By the looks of it from what I can see you need to figure out the fall. You might be able to channel the water for a cross flow or waterwheel. Just the general viewing of your water is there anyother spring on your property you could divert to add more water to your flow. Look and see if there is any other water flowing on your nieghbbors property you could divert to yours and help them drain an area to make it more usable for them plus give you a little more water to work with. It might help you aquire a friendly nieghbor if you both could benifit by a little a small diversion on their property to yours. Just an idea. 13

[stratford4528]

 For some low head water turbines look at alternativeenergysuppliesuk.com But i don,t think you have enough head and flow

[FoolAmI]

Your site is extremly poor for hydro power generation.        Sorry to tell you that but I've installed enough turbines and water wheels to see your low flow and limited head will not make much power.       Just enjoy having a creek.     I've got the same thing out back but I still like knowing that I've got water close by.

[thirteen]

I wounder if you could build a wheel and pick the water up into a tank and when it is full let it run a small crossflow turbine. It would be innermitten at best. It would be fun to try. Dig a pond and grow some fish become a fish farmer. Hydro phonics food? Power to produce power is just not there to me. Just an idea to toss or read. 13

[FoolAmI]

Sort of,    You could buils a spiral pump (water wheel pump) but it would take a long time to pump enough water to make even a small amount of electricity.

[thirteen]

Barrow a transit and see how much slope you really have.  It might help knowing what you really have.  It will eliminate guess work. You could always build a waterwheel just to have to watch while you are in your hot tube. You have enough water to make one hect of a flower garden or one big garden.  I saw an article several years ago about someone who raised mushrooms on logs he stacked and he needed a moist area to grow them in. That is an idea to play with maybe. I can understand that with the water you have flowing over your land and there should be something you can do with it. Some nut tree require a lot of water. Could you plant them and in a couple of years be able to harvest them. Best of luck. 13

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

An easy way to check the drop is to use a long, airtight, hose. (You can assemble a long one out of cheap garden hoses.)

Go to the place where you'd be tapping the water.  Fill the hose with water and make sure you get ALL the bubbles out of it.  Leave one end under water (fasten it down so it won't pull lose.  Cap off the other end TIGHTLY.  Run the other end to where you would be dumping the used water.  Crack open the hose and lift it up until it just stops leaking water.  That's your static head.

You can use a similar setup for a very long level.  (In fact your local hardware store probably sells a device for making such a level:  A couple hose fittings, one with a shutoff value, and both with a foot long piece of transparent tube.  Add a 50 foot hose and a little water and you can do level lines 45 feet long.

[XeonPony]

Or even easier yet, an old camera tripod, a good powerfull laser pointer and a spoting scope, riffle scope or other sight aid, aim the dot where you want to go from where you are and then messure the tilt angle from level, the rest is math, don't eve need the laser pointer if you're not laying the pipe !

[keithturtle]

I used this cheapo laser level when excavating the tailrace at the Three Turtle Island project

http://www.harborfreight.com/16-laser-level-with-swivel-head-69259.html

The tripod and swivel are pretty much worthless, so I set a very level plate of steel on the high point of one side of the dam as a benchmark, and simply set the level on that and point it any direction to get elevations.

Works within the tolerances I need

Turtle

[mike_belben]

sorry for the hiatus, our second child was recently born and there was 3 months of fiasco regarding the property, but we finally closed on it.  i havent been able to get down there but its paid for so im not too worried. 

not gonna waste my time trying to get watts from my water, it would be better used watering our garden and filling our outdoor wood boiler.  thanks for everyone's input though.