Irrigating garden with trash pump supplied by creek?

[DJ54]

Back in the 70's and up to the late 80's, Dad pumped water approx. 600', and uphill right at 90'. He used two jet pumps. One at the creek, approx. 300' from a power source. Over the years he'd picked up enough old triplex entry wire to power the pump, from my then shop. A short stub piping for the jet to the creek, then a single line up to the second pump to act as a booster, to push it the rest of the 300'. He bought the plastic well pipe new at the time. Through adapters from NPT to garden hose fitting.

Somewhere he picked up 8 used, TORO golf course sprinkler heads. Put Tee's on each sprinkler, then npt to water hose fittings on each, to hook them in series with garden hoses. He welded length's of 1/2" rod to each sprinkler head, so as to stake them in the ground. It worked great..!! I'll have to dig through the old pictures, and see if I can find it in action...

Still have it all, for just in case...

 

[cheeto]

I received the pump today and fired it up just to see what it would do. Well it moves a lot of water. A lot of backpressure is being created when conncted to the garden hose. It was just a test run so I will play with it some more this weekend

 

[cheeto]

I got the pump running nicely today. Getting a nice 30 ft radius from a groundworks tri pod sprinkler. The key so far is to use a 2 inch valve at the outlet tobleed of pressure before it downot choked down to 1.25 black poly pipe. A total run of 220 feet.

 

[RFB]

A ram pump and reservoir eventually has a really good ROI (no fuel costs)

https://www.lehmans.com/p-2967-our-best-water-ram-pumps.aspx

 

[cheeto]

I looked at ram pumps. That is how i came using the creek idea. It just wasn't feasible for me. Chinese pump $168, 100 ft poly hose $63, 2 120ft garden hose $52, 2 tripod ground works sprinklers $80, about $60 dollars on misc fittings. I have a pretty effective set up now. I love the idea of a ram pump. You will have some money into those, also they will only pretty much work for drip irrigation or maybe flood irrigation if you have a big enough holding tank. I was running 2 regular size garden hose today. The pump had more then enough pressure and flow to cover about 5500 sqft in about 30 minutes. It honestly cost about a $1.00 in fuel maybe $2.00. Thats at $3.88 a gallon.

 

[WKP]

I got the pump running nicely today. Getting a nice 30 ft radius from a groundworks tri pod sprinkler. The key so far is to use a 2 inch valve at the outlet tobleed of pressure before it downot choked down to 1.25 black poly pipe. A total run of 220 feet.

Do you have any pictures of this setup? I'm doing the same thing you are basically and i can get mine pumping right. Are you saying to put a 2" ball valve coming out of the pump then put a reducer to 1.25"? what would be the differance if i just used a reducer and no valve? Thanks!

 

[cheeto]

I think the ball valve is critical. I tried it without it and the pump was dead heading on start up. The valve on the outlet just before the reducer allow u to open it up, then close it depending on your needs. I have found this to work the best. these pumps are not built to build pressure. its kind of a safety release. I will post pics tomorrow.

 

[DFB]

I dont use any valve on the output side just reducers (my in and out are the same dia.) but I've used other pumps that just wouldnt prime up unless the outflow was temporarily closed off. The old Hale fire pump we had had hand lever you could hold down to temp close off the out port until it primed then just let go to release it. With the hand lever held down you could feel the pressure building up. Need to be careful not to deadhead a running pump that doesnt have a pressure relief or somethings gonna break and hopefully thats just be at a slip on connection. Many times I've seen the poly pipe blow apart from undue pressure buildup where they have been clamped together.

 

[cheeto]

 

[cheeto]

This is my set up. A 2 inch ball valve is just before the 1.25 reducer that is connected to 100 ft of poly pipe.