Remote Living > Water
Deep Well Issues...
birdhouse:
hello all-
i recently bought another 20 acres to my off grid place. brings my total to 40acres. now it's time to start thinking about barbed wiring the place and drilling a well.
my neighbor drilled a well last year and drilled to 420' but hit water at 360' not sure exactly of his pump depth. he is about 1mile away, and on the other (south) side of the ridge. elevation is 4,000 ft. about 50 miles due east of mt adams, WA.
i run a 24v system, and have already realized a new inverter is in the works. i run a prosine 1800 now, but will probably upgrade to an outback 3500w pure sine unit in the near future. i have wind and solar feeding a 450Ah 24v bank. it rarely gets drawn down to even 24.2v.
i've already tossed the idea of having an on demand pump with 110v at those depths, but if anyone know of a solution let me know. there is the xantrax T240 transformer to run 240v pumps, but it isn't cheap, and has standby watt usage, and is another thing to keep after, and pay for.
i know that a grundfos SQflex will work at those depths. i could either power it from my inverter, or a few panels, or a genset. i could then pump it into lets say a 1000 gal storage tank, and use a small on demand pump (with pressure tank) for direct use.
problem is, those SQflex pumps are 1800 bucks!!! plus controller boxes if run direct from solar.
i'm just trying to wrap my mind around this whole scenario, and would very much appreciate any thoughts/wisdom/ideas/ect.
anyone own a deep well drilling rig near south/central washington? i'd make it worth your time!
adam
madlabs:
Adam,
I've played with a few SQ flex pumps, and you can run 'em directly off solar panels, no controller needed. Only thing is it won't shut itself off if you run the well dry and things like that. But my buddy has been pumping his well with just a few panels and a switch for a several years now. And he uses a lot of water on his little mini farm.
Also, I have run one from a cheesy 1000 watt inverter too, no start up surge issues. And that inverter is a complete wimp.
Jonathan
bart:
Hi Adam.
Used to live in the greater Seattle area and that is some beautiful country where your at.
A few notes on our experience on our well.
We have a shared well between me and pop. I'm about 300' from the well house and there is a noticeable difference in water temp. from season to season.
The well is 420' deep and originally pump was set around 350'. Had to be lowered about 3 years later when it started sucking air. They dropped it as low as they could. But we are surrounded by neighbors on 5 - 40 acre plots, all on wells. Wish now that it was deeper.
Lighting a few times has taken out the start and run caps to the 1 1/2 hp 230v pump. Now keep spares on top of relay box.
Built a well house next to the well, modeled after my grandfathers, using 10" walls and r-30 insulation. Never freezes. Has the expansion tank, shut off valves, shelves for stuff You don't want to freeze or need to keep cool.
Really don't like the 30 gal, spun fiberglass tank with bladder. Not enough capacity and I think the bladders leaking. had to add air to it about 3 months and think its flat again. The old well, 90' deep, just had a galvanized steel tank on it and it worked better. Did start getting rust out of it, but that was after 40 + years.
hydrosun:
Unless you really want to pump a lot of water i'd go with the grundfos 5SQ series of pumps. I have a 1/3 hp pump at 150 feet into a pressure tank that works great. I paid les than $500 a7 years ago. I t has a slow start so it doesn't draw much power from the inverter ( now a Outback 2524 but originally it was run on a DR2424) I just looked up and that serof pumps can work down to 700 feet. If you need more water you can move up to the 10SQ series but I'mnot sure which ones can work on 115 volts. The SQflex pumps may be great for lots of water hooked directly to a solar array but are expensive and doesn't always match how much water is needed so you may be wasting either power or water. An on demand pump just pumps the water that is needed. At my depth I figure each gallon takes about 2 watt/hours into a 50psi tank. So unless you are pumping large amounts of water it is a small load on a full solar system.
I've had to replace on at least two other systems the large 2 hp pumps the well driller put in with the smaller 115 volt grundfoss so the offgrid owner didn't have to start the generator each time he wanted water. I know one different on grid grundfos pump that had over 250000 gallons pumped and still going strongSo for price, ability to run on 115 volts, and a proven track record I'd reconmend the Sq series pumps.
Chris
Off grid in Tonopah:
I've been off grid here in the AZ desert for 8 years now with a 500ft deep well and what works well for me is I had a standard 240v deep well pump installed by the driller and pump to a 2500 gal storage tank. From there I used a 115 v demand pump used for higher end RVs. This worked great for about 4 years but made noise in the house piping. So I upgraded to a small 115v pressure pump and tank and it runs the house just fine. (Northern Catalog)
I run the deep well pump on my diesel gen when I do the big load work around the house like laundry day , equalizing batteries or doing some welding or such, usually once a week. This pumps up the storage tank. This way the deep well pump only gets cycled once or twice a week not multi times a day as if it were pumping to a pressure tank as is normal. My deep pump probably cycles less times in a year than some setups do in a week. The small pressure pump runs off the inverter and supplies the house.
I like the set up as it lets me monitor my water use and can spot waste or unusual use easier. Also better use of the diesel as it gives me a high load when it's running.
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