Pump for Vertical Beach Well

Where do you live that salt water flows in an underground source.....I don't know where you're going to find a pump that has a 20' head that pumps only 500 gph max...This is typical flow rate of salt water aquarium, but they typically have only 5-6' head, and the suction line is typically much smaller than 1.25"....What about a larger cycling pump and then just aerate the water...Is this to be used as an aquarium?

Home is in Baja Mexico. Well & pool are to located on a dune at the beach. 500 gph is min. Idea is to replenish pool water to keep it cool and clean w/o using chemicals. Not an aquarium.

Sounds like an application for a common 1/2 hp jet pump from your local hardware store.

At sea level they can easily lift 20 feet just by suction unless its installed or plumbed wrong.

Although I was not personally involved in the project, I know of one person that did something quite similar here in Panama- except they were drawing water directly from the sea (with tidal range on the order of 16 to 20 feet), using a jet pump. The final lift (mid-tide to pool surface) was far in excess of 20 feet. In this particular case, there was initially an issue with sucking up a lot of sand, but this was solved with a proper strainer design (the part of the project with which I was involved). Drawing the water from a well would have been easier- but well water, even on the beach, is not always clean sea water...

Sounds like a good application for a shallow well jet pump. Here's one you could check out: http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/1229/Jet-Pumps

If claims to have provisions for salt water, but there's not much info at the site for performance or materials of construction. You could contact them and check it out.

Other manufacturers make stainless steel jet pumps, but I don't think all the parts are suitable for salt water - for instance, the shaft and seal spring.

Let us know what you find.

Your best bet is a "raw water wash down" pump used by boaters. These pumps are made in the 6 GPM range you want and are specifically designed for salt water. Also, they are not expensive. They are 12 VDC so you will need a power supply.

"They are 12 VDC so you will need a power supply."

Any DC (or AC) brush type motor will have a very short life compared to an AC motor.

An AC underwater sump pump should work here.

Sump pump

Will not a 'submersible pump' or a 'vertical submerged pump' mounted on float work? Of course with suitable (wetted) material for saline service...

I agree, a submerged pump would be best, pumps work better at "supplying", rather than "sucking". Reduce the lift to nothing by submerging.

A pump with a "float" switch will switch itself off if the well runs dry.......they are cheap, run off AC and work for years. Like this one here:-

As mentioned by others this is not a challenging pump application.

You just have to choose the type of pump.

Centrifugal or reciprocating, submersible or surface.

It's gonna be breezy near the sea. Have you considered a windmill pump? Stainless steel and PVC/ABS will give you the corrosion resistance for the pump body and pipes. The tower will require the same maintenance as the weather exposed portions of your house. Gearbox will go for years without being touched if it is new and not damaged.

Green solution....

Tom,

I use a Mono progressing cavity pump.

Pulls from 23ft and has done for many years. I've installed a special priming valve onto the pump body to lube the rotor when the thing has lain idle for some time. Just plug on a garden hose, run the pump AFTER turning on the water and when it picks up the load shut the priming valve and turn off the hose. I'm pulling from sand also.

This thing (Mac) wont let me add a link, but if you Google: Mono US and go to 'PC pumps' it'll give you all the info.

There are other brands too.

Stu.

Stu

Thanks for the lead. Checked the website. Small pc pump looks like it might fit the bill exactly. I will speak to MONO US next week.

Tom

Stu

What model number Mono PC pump are you using? Is the motor 110v?

Thanks

Tom

Tom,

It's a CP80R. 1 1/4" in and out.

It's been in service since 1988 and has had 1 each of: seal, rotor, and flex cavity(rubber housing).

The motor is a 3/4hp 1440rpm 230v 50hz unit ( I'm in OZ)

I'd guess that you'd be better with a smaller unit, say 1".

Hope this helps.

cheers

Stu.

I believe that you would be best served with a noncorrosive thermoplastic-reinforced submersible pump instead of a jet pump or well pump.

Here's an inexpensive 1/2 HP submersible pump that's available from Home Depot:

Wayne 1/2 HP Non-Clogging Vortex, Reinforced Thermoplastic Submersible Utility Pump, Model # VIP50. Stay away from Stainless Steel encased pumps with cast iron impellers, as the salt water will eat them away very quickly...

Do a Google Search for Home Depot...or Lowe's. You can order them through the mail as well, or buy the correct one from Ebay or Harbour-Freight or Northern Tools,

There are other equally acceptable brands available....Flo-Tech, Myers, Gould's Pumps, etc.

Hi Thomas

We wouldn't be allowed to do it here but I would place one of these were it fits.

Yours is not an industrial application so no real interruption, if flow-rate slows down. It's not asking much off a small version. If you don't want to buy a tailor made one you could build and set one up over a weekend, if tools and workshop in place.

You could, at same later stage, add other uses like making ice cubes

"We wouldn't be allowed to do it here", why?

I built one for a backyard fountain...but it was no twenty feet high! I had some compressed air. I fed the compressed air down to a half inch i.d. plastic tube, the vertical stand pipe. The bubbles went up the tube, and brought slugs of water with them as they rose up the vertical stand pipe. I moved a surprisingly large amount of water that way. I tried it with a sump pump, but it didn't work as well...intermittent water levels proved to be a problem.

Advantages....can be used with salt water, or silty water, and gold fish filled water. No submerged moving parts. No failure due to corrossion. I always felt that trick would be really useful if I wanted to change the water in a pool or aquarium someday, like, on a continual ongoing basis.

If it didn't move enough water, a few extra stand pipes would be easy to make. I mean, how expensive would a bundle of half inch vynilite tubing be?

They say that air lift pumps like this don't lift very high. That was not my experience. I always meant to see if bundles of pipes of narrower diameter would work better. Anybody else have any experience with these things?

Even better and easy to build

Air lift pump can do that 20' easily and then some.

No corrosion issues or maintenance (excluding the air compressor) required.

Noise from the compressor might not suit the OP's application.

Here's a commercially available unit. They are easy to build if that's an option.

Oh very cool. Nice link!

I never thought that somebody could actually make one of these commercially! A thousand litres an hour! Thats not so shabby at all! I know, a jet pump could deliver that in a minute, but I guess one would have to compare their respective electrical current draw!

The advantages are many...the accessiblity of the prime mover, (A compressor which can be used in other places and for other things on the property), no over heating or burning out, and if it clogs, it is easy to service. No possibility of rusting. No seals to burst or need replacing, no rusty bolts with impossible to separate wet and dry ends, and no possible way to electrify the bathing water. (no ground faulting.) It can run dry safely for days, and be ready when the water comes back. No need for priming or foot valves. Not to mention thirty bucks worth of taped together plastic tubing as opposed to three hundred bucks for a jet pump. Disadvantages of course are that you don't get much pressure, only a fair amount of volume. And the compressor noise...but the compressor need only kick on for a few minutes every hour or so. Or you could house the compressor in a sound absorbing closet like I do. (But my compressor is big, and used for many things around my house and business.) And you can't use it for horizontal runs...bubbles don't flow sideways...grin!

As long as the flow is more or less continuous, this would work in Canada. I rather like it. Those aussies...clever folk they are!

Yusef

FYI ....found another commercially available air lift pump. Check out Buffalo Air Pumps. They make a stainless steel pump small enough to fit into a 1" diameter well.

Yusef

Interesting idea! I am picturing:

1.25" id PVC wellpoint with 4' sand screen driven to a depth of 20'.A pond aeration pump is connected to a 1/2" id air supply tube within wellpipe that reaches to the bottom of sandscreen. Also within the wellpipe a bundle of 1/4" riser tubes to the same depth as the top of the sand screen. Riser tubes feed air and wellwater into bottom of 4' deep pool. Supply of wellwater is cool. As it warms and rises it overflows the pool edge back to the beach.

Simple and elegant if it works!

Any idea how much water your fountain pump moved?

Anyone with experience w/pond pumps know if they are capable of pushing air to the depth I require?\

Will I be able to supply the pool at it's bottom? Will the pressure of the pool water impact airlift pump system? Maybe pool supply should be from above water level?

Thanks

Tom

I think one and quarter pipe is too big. I used half inch plastic pipe...the gray stuff I had left over from an electrical reno job, with a couple of feet of three quarter inch at the bottom with a hose tucked up inside it. It was not designed to be very efficient. I can just see Capt. Moosie shaking his head, facepalming, and saying "Bill, Bill, Bill....another buck-shee job!!! Musta been in the military!"

But...

Lasted all summer. Then I renovated and the plastic is now being used to shield wires to an outside light.

Though my trick seemed to work okay, I did not think of it as a pump, but rather as a way to move water without a noisy pump. It is hard to get a small pump that moves a fairly small amount of water, but much easier and cheaper to get a sump pump to move a large amount of water. I didn't want a true Las Vagas style fountain. For one thing, the gold fish would have hated it!

Just used a standard half inch rubber hose to deliver the air, and a c clamp to regulate it. But I was only moving it up, what eight or ten feet. I figured if I had a lot more height to worry about, I would have used a smaller pipe. And more of them. But, I may be wrong about that. Only experiment will prove what is best.

That being said, this testimonial uses half inch air supply and one and a half i.d. pipe @ 130psi. pushing it up three hundred and forty feet! (OMG!) These guys seem to be the experts...

What would I use for a screen? A bucket full of rocks around the well head would keep the goldfish out, Oh, and the outlet of the air into the stand pipe must be below the level of water in the sump.

LOL @ Yusef's comment:

"I can just see Capt. Moosie shaking his head, facepalming, and saying "Bill, Bill, Bill....another buck-shee job!!! Musta been in the military!"

Nahhhhh, I like your idea of using an air-lift pump....it's elegant! hehehehehehehe

I'm imagining a scenario where in a mini wind mill drives an air compressor which intern supplies compressed air to air lift pump. Has anybody tried it out?

For an application like watering garden/field, the need is just to lift the water little above ground level. This arrangement keeps pumping water when air current works on fan. Thus the conventional electric pumping system could supplement the balance need.

In such an arrangement the catch could be the compressor, which type of compressors would be most suited for a wide range of speed? How to connect the compressor with the fan shaft (preferably direct coupling) without much of complicated drive arrangement? How to control the speed of fan, again with simple arrangements? Had any one experienced, sharing would be great information.

Or you could connect the wind mill directly to the pump.....

Yes, but direct drive, being a mechanical engineer, gives me a deep breath.

From the fan shaft to the pump the transmission would be through some shafting. In most of such applications, reciprocating pumps are used. This should be ok for fairly larger set up, but for smaller arrangement using an inch and half pipe size, a proportional sizing of shaft pump would be difficult. That is why I like the air lift idea despite the efficiency could be very low.

Fine, let me reframe my question: how simply we can connect a compressor with the fan shaft? Can direct coupling an option? Which type of (rotary) compressor (sliding vane?) could be preferred than receip.

I'm imagining an arrangement: A rotary compressor is directly coupled with wind mill fan shaft with a simple (but positive) speed control arrangement. Windmill doesn't need to be directly above the bore, can anywhere, on the roof of a building or like. Air from the top led to lift pump, quietly pumps as and when wind feels like;)

OP seemed to like the idea of air lift.

The compressor could be stashed anywhere on the property and enclosed to ameliorate noise issues.

If OP goes the airlift path then he will also have compressed air for inflating pool/beach toys, refilling the 4x4's tyres after a thrash in the dunes before hitting the pavement, blowing the fog horn, powering the potato cannon and loads of other useful things.

I do like the idea of air lift however, running a large enough compressor on a continuous basis is problematic both in operating cost and noise. I'm on a small lot so remoting the compressor is not an option. Though quiet, I do not think that pond aeration pumps are able to move the volume of air or provide the pressure pressure needed. I will try to rig up an air lift system though, just as an experiment. Meanwhile I will keep looking for a pump. Maybe I just have to plan on replacing a corroded pump every year. BTW....I always use ether for the potato cannon.

TCS

small compressors...

cheaper than a submersible pump imho. Small ones are quiet, and run off of single phase common household current.

You suggest that where you come from that Submersible Pumps are relatively expensive, I am surprised as they run from around $20 upwards here with float switch.....

Here for example in Germany:-

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Schmutzwasserpumpe-Tauchpumpe-Wasserpumpe-Brunnenpumpe-Pumpe-11-5-m3-550W-/250999893727?pt=Pumpen&hash=item3a70c26edf

I looked on ebay USA, hundreds of pumps under $30.......all new.

The OP is looking for a non-corrossive pump with a fairly small flow. He stated in his question that he had a lot of trouble finding such a pump. I presume he can go on ebay as well. The pump in question is supplying a swimming pool, and so needs to be ground fault protected by law, the GFI I picked up for my hot tub was two hundred dollars. Before installation. I suppose one could cheap out on the safety breaker...but hmmm, maybe the smaller cheaper kind are suitable. His local electrician would be able to advise. The pumps he has used in the past have rusted out within a year. All submersible pumps are a pain to service...and require a four to six inch diameter shaft. An air lift pump needs no GFI and can be inserted into a sand point drilled one inch shaft. Such a shaft would be a fraction of the cost of the bigger diameter shaft.

So it is not just the one price to think of...its the whole installation.

Compressed air is a much overlooked option in plumbing installations he says sagely....with a knowing wink and a nod.

Andy

Thanks for your input.

Indeed there are many inexpensive submersible pumps for 4" wellpipes. My wellpipe inside diameter is 1.25 inches. A 2 stage system is a possibility; use a cheap jetpump to pump water to a cistern and then supply the pool from the cistern. That gives me clean, non-treated pool water but I was hoping to get some cooling from the supply.Summer temps are frequently over 100F and a small pool would get hot pronto.I suppose that I could insulate the cistern or dig a wider well. A windmill might work, I've seen stocktank setups for sale that look feasible but, despite being on the beach wind in the summer is sporadic.

I will probably have to take a shot at using some kind of positive displacement or peripheral pump as they seem to have the suction lift I need. I say take a shot because no manufacturer I have contacted has been able or willing to spec a pump for my application.

TCS