getting water from the creek to the house???

[scesnick]

Hello All,

I recently posted about using my creek water for domestic water. Well, I started to dig the lines and I was trying to figure out how I am actually going to get the water out of the creek. Here is the plan I devised. I am going to dig about a 7ft. hole right in the creek and then put a few cinder blocks in the hole to level out the bottom. I am then going to use a plastic 55 gallon barrel and drill a bunch of 1/2 holes in it and then put a cinder block inside the barrel and put it in the creek. ( the cinder block is to hold it down below the water). Hopefully this will keep some of the silt/sticks/leaves out of the barrel.

Then I am going to put some kind of pump inside this barrel and pump the water up to the house. Here is my questions.

1. what size/kind of pump should I use. It My house is about 75ft. higher than the creek and about 300 ft away.
   
2. Does anyone have a better way as far as the barrel idea goes? Is there a better solution to keeping the sticks/ leaves out of the barrel and awat from the pump???
   
   

Thanks for your ideas...

Shawn,

As Nando and Vawtman pointed out, you do not keep up with the prior post regarding this. Once again I urge you to go back there, read the responses and continue with it there.  It will make it much easier for you and those attempting to help if the thread remains in one place. Pretty simple. Now you just need to go to that thread and continue.

New comments disabled for this thread, again, to encourage you to do it properly. In about 24 hours I will kill this one so do not be surprised when it happens.

[Nando]

IT IS CLEAR THAT YOU DO NOT READ YOUR MESSAGES AND REPLIES

I did this one already, which I copy again for you.

REPLYING TO YOUR DISABLED MESSAGE

How much water are you using and what is the head of the stream to determine the type of ram pump you need to have (instead of an electric pump).

The best arrangement to capture water from the stream is to have an intake with a large screened area, in this case, holes around 1/8 inch or even less, laying down on the bed where the stream moves faster and always covering the screen for the water to take away the debris that may attach to the screen.

Make the screened area at least 50 to 100 times the pipe area, this way the water will enter the screen at low velocity which helps in not allowing the debris to hang on the screen if the water is covering it.

I have used Stainless steel Mesh, with 12 lines inch, this would clean the great majority of debris, then internally, use a woman nylon sock for ultra fine debris filtering, cheap and easy to replace at low cost.

This type of filtering, we have used for water pickups for rural homes and for small hydro electric systems with great results.

A better description of your stream with the head it may have, may assist to give you better indications for a Ram Pump to feed the water to a tank above the house and to have, this way, a pressurized water source to your home.

Place the purifying filtering system by the storage tank to avoid having the need to add a pump to have the necessary pressure.

WE normally make two sets, one working and one for cleaning and or replacement for cleaning the used one.

Nando

[scesnick]

Nando,

 I posted this same question yesterday. I even checked it 3-4 times during the day at work. THEN this morning i went to check it and it was completely gone..... That is why I didn't check my replies. I don't know what the deal was with that... Also, when I tried to log in the board would not allow me to chose between topic without booting me off...

Anyhoo,  I'm not sure if a ram pump would work for my application. ( I could be wrong here.) But I plan on using my pressure tank that I already have installed. And use the pressure tank switch to tell the pump when to turn on and off.

I would also like to keep my current well and possibly have some kind of switch to go back and forth from my current well to the creek pump.. Just in case my water supply from the creek has a problem I can always just switch back to my well temperarily.

To be honest i don't even know exactly how a ram pump works.

[vawtman]

Shawn if i were you i would try to fix the water you have.I know its frustrating but prodadly less than what your about to encounter

 My thoughts.

 Mark

[scesnick]

vawtman,

I have tried for the past 5 years ( and about $4,000 )  to fix this crappy water. The only perminant fix I can see would be to dig a new well and I don't want to go there. This creek originates on my property and the small town below me used this water for 40 years with no problems. I had it tested and it is very clean. ( unlike my crappy well ) I own my own backhoe and the trench will just be straight acrossed the filed so this shouldn't be a huge endeavor.

[Nando]

You should have gone to your OLD initial message.

The moderator did not allowed to post comments to motivate you to use your old initial message to avoid chasing messages all over the group.

The pump needs some height, let's say : 20 feet of the intake pipe, this is used by the ram pump to do the cycling, allowing water to fill the chamber and then pushing the water up the pipe and the lift capabilities may be much more than 75 feet, I have seen 150 feet and large ones like 6 or 8 inch pipes to raise water for a small town .

It uses the water energy for operation, so no additional power is needed day and night, pulsing from few seconds a pulse to 3 or so pulses per second.

It is much better than an electric pump.( no energy)

Google : ram pump design and other variations

http://journeytoforever.org / at_waterpump.html

http://www.clemson.edu / irrig / Equip/ram.htm

http://www.thefarm.org / charities / i4at / lib2 / hydrpump.htm

READ this to understand ram pumps

http://atlaspub.20m.com / kits.htm

Nando

[scesnick]

Nando,

I can get about 40 ft of head and anywhere from 140+- GPM in the summer upwards of 400+-GPm in the spring. But that would require a penstock run of about 500ft to acheive that head pressure. Then I would be looking at a substantial cost for the pipe.

If you recall, we have had conversations about my micro hydro aspirations for this same creek. In the case of the micro hydro, I would have to locate the turbine further down stream to acheive about 52 ft of head... I do plan on doing the micro hydro. Most likely next spring........

Shawn,