RalphVa
Super Member
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2003
- Messages
- 7,873
- Location
- Charlottesville, VA, USA
- Tractor
- JD 2025R, previously Gravely 5650 & JD 4010 & JD 1025R
The conversion factor I always used for water head was 0.424 times head in feet to get psi. You can get around 5 gpm through your 1" pipe without any significant pressure drop. I have a gravity system that I sized for about 2 gpm and put in 3/4" poly pipe 800' down the hill with almost exactly 100' vertical drop. One of my tanks is a few inches above the other one. The only thing I watch is to close off the lower one in order to fill the higher one (from downspouts off the roof); no big deal, the lower one will just overflow a bit if the higher one fills up. Turns out it almost never does because that roof has a tree overhanging it that restricts the rainfall hitting the roof; whereas, the lower tank gets more rainfall on its 3 roofs without trees over them.
You might want to check out the prospects of using a ram pump if you want more pressure. I've heard of people putting them on a flowing stream to get water up higher than the stream. Think it takes a high flow under low head though. You probably can't get enough flow (no more than about 5 gpm) to get much flow out of a ram pump. They work by flowing water pressurizing an air tank and then a trip releases the pressure and pumps the water up to a tank. I've looked at some Google sites on them.
Ralph
You might want to check out the prospects of using a ram pump if you want more pressure. I've heard of people putting them on a flowing stream to get water up higher than the stream. Think it takes a high flow under low head though. You probably can't get enough flow (no more than about 5 gpm) to get much flow out of a ram pump. They work by flowing water pressurizing an air tank and then a trip releases the pressure and pumps the water up to a tank. I've looked at some Google sites on them.
Ralph