Stainless Steel Pump for Ground Water

What sort of lift and what sort of flowrate?

Deep or shallow well? What material is the pump that you are using made from? Cause of failure? Most well pump body's are ether stainless steel or plastic. The impeller is plastic. If you are getting a lot of sand the pump or the pick up maybe set too close to the bottom of the well. After years of service the well may have silted in. Drawing the pump up a few feet may correct the wear problem due to sand.

make sure you get a high grade of stainless also

"very hard water and hydrogen sulfide"

Yep - 400 series SS if you can get it

It is actually artesian water with about 13 lbs. upward pressure.

The pump needed approximately 2 hp for house hold use. Second pump for water distribution for irrigation.

Pumps I have used are Sears and mainly plastic. But all the metal parts on them corrode away.

Sand is a minor poblem. I can open unit and clean twice per year.

Draper (usual disclaimer) do a pump that has all-plastic wetted parts for 240VAC supply. The sand issue is overcome by lowering a piece of paving slab down the well, sitting the pump on that slab as a base, and filtering everything coming out of the well to 5μm. Now, is there a 110VAC version? Hmmmmmm.............

http://www.draper.co.uk/Pages/Pagesource/p633-635.pdf

Yep. There's some 110VAC ones as well.

Can you describe the type of pump you are using? Does the pump you are using have a good ground connection? Even a cast iron pump should last many years. Most wells use either a jet pump (shallow) or a submersible pump (deep) but it sounds as if you are using some type of inline pump to increase water pressure. Also what type of pipe is used for the water line and connected to the pump. Is the pipe used for the water line (complete system) all the same type?

Thanks for all the info.

First of all my well is just a pvc pipe driven into the ground. No access to well to put a piece of pavement. The water comes to the surface naturally. I use the pumps to distibute the water into water purification system and then to house. 220 /110 wiring.

I have been using sears shallow well pumps. 1/2 to 1 hp

I am looking for a place to buy a better quality high pump that can handle the problem better.

Cast iron pumps like a meyers really rust to pieces. this is a very swampy area in the Black Hammock in Oviedo Florida . Super acid soil and very hard water (off the chart)

The Sears pumps are mostly plastic and have lasted the longest.

I found some stainless pumps but they were all 3 phase.

thanks

WW Grainger's, branch in Altemonte Springs

Not sure if it's available in 110V or not, but I've had very good luck with a Grundfos stainless steel pump submersible in a hard water spring. It's just sitting horizontally in a cradle made of PVC near the bottom of an approximately 4 ft deep pool so it picks up sand and other trash but has performed without any attention for over 4 years now. I believe even the impellers are stainless steel. Using it for single pass geothermal HVAC unit. Not cheap though.

What about those displacement pumps with a rubber diaphragm?

As Andy suggested, a helical rotor pump should be ideal.

I'm not sure of the US makers, but here we have a couple of makers and one model has a plastic body, close coupled to a single phase motor, up to about 2 hp.

This should handle corrosion, hardness and sand without much problem.

Years ago, we had a 4 pole speed multi stage pump feeding sea water to the aquarium at Taronga Park Zoo (Sydney). The zoo supplemented this as they expanded the aquarium with a 2 pole speed pump from another maker.

In 1978, they rang me for the first spare parts they had used since 1936 - some coupling rubbers! (The wet parts of the pump were still going strong). The other (higher speed) pump used an impeller every 18 months!.

Go for the slowest speed pump you can afford which will do the job. Maintenance requirements will be dramatically lower.

Thanks for all the advice some of which is applicable.

GRAINGER supply indeed does carry what I am looking for. Approximately $750.00

Thanks all

have a look also at this paper from nidi

GUIDELINES FOR SELECTION OF NICKEL STAINLESS STEELS FOR MARINE ENVIRONMENTS, NATURAL WATERS AND BRINES

http://www.stainless-steel-world.net/pdf/11003.pdf

Materials for saline water pumps

http://www.stainless-steel-world.net/pdf/11004.pdf

s

corrosion prevention