Harvesting Overflow to Boost Water Pressure

You can use falling water to compress air in a trompe. After initial expense of installation, it will operate (until failure) for free.

20 feet will not get you much. The energy that pressurizes the air is solely a derivative of the hydraulic head. Can you get more drop?

I saw this on a different thread

http://www.apmhydro.com/

which could spin an electric pump

continuing on a the more direct method you suggest

much more maybe another 100 foot

run the air back up the hill with some drip line

the device can discharge water into a small existing pond

I'll spend some more time looking at this after I finish putting up some more fence...

I know this is not really what you are looking for but you might look into a hydraulic ram water pump. Just google or wiki for an explanation. They use the energy associated with stopping a water flow to develop higher pressures for pumping. They use no power source other than the water flow kinetic energy. Interesting device.

I too would suggest looking into a hydraulic ram pump (Montgolfier pump or bélier hydraulique). The only caveat is that the flow available has to be several times the flow that is pumped, because it is the potential energy of the excess flow that provides the pumping energy for delivery. As a rough rule of thumb, expect to need five times the delivered flow.

Can you attach one of these to the shaft of your pump and use the water to drive the pump instead of electricity?

I agree with DaveB, the hydraulic dam can lift small amounts of water continuously by several multiples of the drop.

See one operating.

Nice link

<, drops 20 feet or so & fills a 500 gallon tank.

The overflow is 5 GPM.>

To use the Overflow do this:

Float level switch directs the free fall to another smaller tank having a free fall say 3'.That filling up gives you a pressure line with head 17'(put simply).

Kind of perpetual machine you can think of now."Free energy " --to Lift water?

I guess I should fill in a few more details:

the point of use is about the same level as the spring

the goal being a modest 25 psi

That sounds like an ideal use for the hydraulic ram. If you moved one or both tanks to an elevation above your attic, you could have positive gravitational pressure.

A home made hydraulic ram pump

It would be possible to have only the kitchen & bath having higher pressure

that's a little further down the road

I'm keeping an eye on the water heater too, though there is no sediment evident at the drain

You could fit an inline water pump to increase pressure in the bathroom for showers - common practice, only work when water flowing, pump fitted in house, so protected from the elements, close to power supply, etc. The important bit is to have the drinking water kept at lower temperature to restrict the growth of any nasties present.

Is there any way to move the storage tank to the top? Then you can harvest the 20 feet of head directly into a pressure tank and boost it with a pump if necessary.

I realize that I need to find out how much head the spring has, of course I'm pretty sure if I plugged it up a small marsh would form pretty close to the origin

the present system works, but is sort of make shift

We really only just moved in within the past few days, so I have a ways to go

500 gallons would be small for a typical well driven system water?

500 gallons is minimal storage for a rural water system. I'd double that at least, or add a 1000 gallon tank in parallel. We store 3500 gallons in our system.

1/2" poly line and a pressure gauge will quickly give you your head.

no negative water related events going back to the 60's here or at the neighbors that are also spring fed

I'm still trying to figure out where things go

I probably got ahead of myself with this thread

the house is at the top of the property & only a single story so direct gravity is out

more storage is certainly in order, how much & where is yet to be determined

there are a couple of derelict cattle watering troughs in other areas that I need to investigate

What would be most effective is to raise the tank, which will limit the drop into it so reduce the head to point of use. Then the larger discharge drop will have less to do. If there is not already a small tank in the house, then add one, at a base height of at least the tap height. This will allow a small trickle to collect sufficient water for your normal use, and keep an electric pump for when a bath needs to be run.

20 feet drop has hardly enough Energy Head to properly charge your house water lines....it only imparts 8.66 psi of Static water pressure. If you open a faucet valve, or what have you, that pressure will most certainly drop a fair degree. The the other effect is that your water flow will crawl to a trickle with an open fixture valve.

Probably the best, reliable, and simplest way to get sufficient water pressure is to employ a centrifugal pump, pressure sensors, and a hydropneumatic tank coupled with an air compressor......the very same system employed around the world where the water source is a well. Okay, it does require electricity and some plumbing smarts, but can be serviced by almost any well pump supplier around the country.

Why not drill an adequate well (greater than 40 feet in depth for sanitation purposes)in the first place instead of relying on a spring?

From an Environmental Engineering standpoint I'd be VERY CONCERNED having a spring for my drinking water. Many many State Health Departments and the USEPA studies have repeatedly determined across the entire country that a vast majority of springs are under the influence of surface runoff, and therefore highly susceptible to contamination, such as animal feces and agricultural pesticides.

Have you had your water source tested for coliform presence and count as well as testing for Ag chemicals and pesticides by a Certified Laboratory? If not, or if not recently, I strongly recommend that you do so before venturing into trying to pressuring your household water service as it would be throwing good money after bad should it be discovered that your water source is contaminated. I ask you of this: why would you allow your family and yourself to be placed under a potential health risk such utilizing a water spring? It's like playing Russian Roulette....

It already has a pump, switch & a pressure tank. I wondering if I can make use of the 5 gallons a minute that is running down hill to the creek which is around 100 foot below, so the pump would only kick on when the usage was heavy

the water tests good. we're nearly at the top of the hill so no issues of being downstream of any run off. I'd be much more likely to install filters for the drinking water than blow $10k on a well

Springs on the East Coast are much different in quality than the mountain springs of the West Coast.

As long as you keep an eye on everything you should have no problem, from an environmental standpoint.

Ram Pumps http://www.green-trust.org/2000/rampump.htm

I think I need to keep an eye out for a couple of tanks

a hot water heater has more than a few threaded holes

the location of the storage is a difficult decision

looks like a spring time project, which will give me some planning time

IMO, pump the spring water up to an elevated water storage tank and let GRAVITY take over after that to provide the necessary flow rate and system pressure throughout the house. You'll need a tank level switch to override the pump if the water level is at the high water level...for "pump on" and "pump off" operation. If the Total Dynamic Head (TDH) of the discharge line from the pump is fairly low, you probably can get away with a small submersible pump equipped with a float switch. Discharge line could be 1 1/4-inch or 1 1/2-inch diameter PVC pipe. Just make sure that the float switch doesn't contain any Mercury...just in case the plastic case cracks. Also, make sure that the PVC joint cleaner and solvent conforms to NSF Standard 61 (acceptable for contact with potable water). Of course I'm assuming that you have a "stilling" basin located at the spring outflow.

KISS...and effective!

only problem is everything is below the single story house

I guess I could build a water tower or buy a really tall tank

I'd still be left relying on the pump, which I would prefer to reduce the use of. I'm certainly going to keep the nice SS centrifugal, at the very least I'll add a bigger pressure tank

this stuff Hdpe

https://keithspecialty.com/water.line.pe.htm

is fairly common & quite a bit more durable than pvc, looks like there is both 1" & 1 1/2" in use presently

right now the 500 gallon storage tank is the stilling device, it probably would be good to do something a little more formal

as the thread goes on, I get a better picture of a minimum goal

1500 gallons of storage

stilling device [could be the 500 gallon tank with the out being 1/2 up, the low point discharge becoming the clean out]

addition of a 80 gallon pressure tank

as a separate project some sort of storage, watering troughs & a way to irrigate a couple of pastures downhill, not positive of the source yet. I'll do a better survey when it cools off & the poison oak isn't quite as virulent or I can wear more clothes

Let us go back to basics: To Hydraulic Intensifier/Accumulator - with sequential valve opening/closing .

Simplest System 'Archimedean' will work thus:

• Water will keep coming at 5 GPM into this accumulator via Open V2 .When accumulator is full , valve V1 deflects the 5 gpm to Lift Forcing line from time T=0 . Now non-return valve V2 shuts tight to pressurize outlet line to feed overhead storage tank 30' above house floor. Total head needed=50'wc
• Lift forcing line will now push 12" dia piston with 20' water column . Excess will go to drain.
• 6"dia pressure piston Connected rigidly to bottom of 12" Piston will force water trapped in Accumulator to 50'wc++.
• When 12" dia piston reaches bottom -- cycle repeats(V1 filling accumulator).
• System needs One 3 way valve V1, one check valve V2, 2-piston forcer.