Emergency Well Water

[Michael Mills]

Living in the county and having well water I have been thinking of adding an auxiliary pump. It doesn’t happen often but when the power is out everything is out. The longest time was for almost a week after hurricane Hugo.
As far as I remember, my water table is 25 feet and this poses the largest problem. Smaller pumps will only pull from 20 - 22 feet ($75-125). I have looked at hand pumps, 12V pumps (use my pickup), and 110V (use my generator). Once you get longer than the 22 foot maximum pull, the price increases dramatically (like to $600 – 1,000). Volume would not be a major consideration as even ½ gallon a minute would suffice in an emergency situation. The line would not need to be large (1/2”?) and I would try to add a quick connect for the pump and leave the line in the well.

Has anyone added an emergency pump to their own system? I would prefer electric as I would have to remove the “wishing well” to use a hand pump.

Thanks for any info or suggestions.

[Matt Meiser]

Why not just run your regular pump on your generator? That's what we do.

[Walter Plummer]

My brother in Maine was telling me about these pumps. http://www.bisonpumps.com/ I have no experience with them or any connection to the company.

[Myk Rian]

Why not just run your regular pump on your generator? That's what we do.

Same here. Although it could be a problem if the well is wired 220, and the generator is not.

[Scott T Smith]

Same here. Although it could be a problem if the well is wired 220, and the generator is not.

Ditto here. I have a propane fired generator on an automatic transfer switch that powers the well, the electric fences (for the horses), the kitchen basics, furnace fan (gas furnace), the bathroom lights and the bedroom fans (and the TV).

My house generator is only 5500 watts, but I can run it for 3 days solid on 100 gallons of propane. I know a guy up in Newport News that has a pair of surplus Onan, low hour, good used propane generators with transfer switchs that could picked up pretty right too.

[Matt Meiser]

Same here. Although it could be a problem if the well is wired 220, and the generator is not.

Yeah, but he could buy an inexpensive 220-capable generator for the prices he's talking. Our well is (now) 90' and we only need a 1HP pump rated at 5.2A--doesn't take much. And the old generator has resale value, especially during the next storm

Edit:
Also, I think our submersible 1HP pump was about $700 and that's a special 3" model since a 4" pump in a 4" well around here is a disaster waiting to happen due to the iron content in the water. The 4" were much, much less.

[Mike Archambeau]

That Bison handpump is the ticket for a shallow well. Before the grid that is how people did it. So in a backup situation that is a low cost way to get water. No gas or oil required.......just elbow grease.

Of course a backup generator is a wonderful tool too.......but when the grid is down, it could be tough to get petrol for the generator.

[Michael Mills]

Thanks everyone!
I will check out my generator tomorrow, I know it has 210 but I am not sure of the amps however 5.2 isn’t much. I checked Lowes and most 1 hp were 8-10 amps.
I guess I was mentally comparing the pump to my air compressor. Using the compressor, if the pressure was above about 60psi I had to bleed it down for the generator to have the oomph to get it going again.
The pump is about 175’ deep so I have about 150’ of water on top. For an emergency pump I only wanted to draw from about 50’.
The Bison is a great pump I assume, it is one of the pumps I looked at. For a deep well (over 25’) they are $780 for a hand pump.
And typing this I just remembered I turned on the garden sprinkler about 6:00. Maybe another OT on sprinkler timers.

[Randy Davidson]

Why not just run your regular pump on your generator? That's what we do.

+1. I use a 7500 watt generator run through a transfer switch to run the essentials.

[Scott T Smith]

Thanks everyone!
I will check out my generator tomorrow, I know it has 210 but I am not sure of the amps however 5.2 isn’t much. I checked Lowes and most 1 hp were 8-10 amps.
I guess I was mentally comparing the pump to my air compressor. Using the compressor, if the pressure was above about 60psi I had to bleed it down for the generator to have the oomph to get it going again.
The pump is about 175’ deep so I have about 150’ of water on top. For an emergency pump I only wanted to draw from about 50’.
The Bison is a great pump I assume, it is one of the pumps I looked at. For a deep well (over 25’) they are $780 for a hand pump.
And typing this I just remembered I turned on the garden sprinkler about 6:00. Maybe another OT on sprinkler timers.

The standard formula for a generator is 1.8HP is required to produce 1000 watts output, so if you don't know the wattage output on your generator see if you can find the HP and calculate it from there.

[Roger Russell]

To heck with water! I've got to keep my lathe running.

[Myk Rian]

The standard formula for a generator is 1.8HP is required to produce 1000 watts output, so if you don't know the wattage output on your generator see if you can find the HP and calculate it from there.

Then you get into is it true hp, or max rated with locked armature hp.
Nothing is simple these days.

[Mike Cutler]

Michael

You're better off just running it off a portable generator.

If you have a "typical" well pump installation, there are going to be "plastic donuts" every 10-20 feet on the discharge piping. The donuts will prevent you from dropping a second pump along side the first. I know that mine wouldn't let me drop another pump along side.

The depth of the pump is of little concern. It's the amount of distance from the water table to the well tank that is important. A pump 175' feet under water and the same pump 50' under water will do the same work to pump the same volume at a given flow rate. Suction and Discharge head are a zero delta across the pump.