Creating a Lake

[tommu56]

Eddie

dig a pit and make a water fall and measure the with and higth of water over dam use this web page to calculate flow

Calculation of discharge over a broad-crested weir, Victor Miguel Ponce, San Diego State University

tommu56

 

[EddieWalker]

Inspector & tommu,

Thanks for the link, but I've already ordered the hose and it should be here tomorrow.

I'm still looking for a stop watch and as soon as I find one, I'll do a bunch of timed tests to see how long it takes to fill a five gallon bucket.

Pic one.

I took the gas tank out of my Blazer. It's a parts vehicle that I bought for another project and have no need for the tank. Then I took off the fill hose and the fuel pump. There are no drains on the bottom of the tank, so I had to make one. I needed to get my hand into the tank, so I cut the opening bigger.

Pic two.

Then I put a brass hose barb fitting with 1/4 inch pipe threads into the bottom of the tank. I put a 1/4 inch pipe thread fitting on the other side and sealed it with a pair of washers and lots of gasket sealer.

Pic three.

I cut the fill nozzle down to a short length that was still above the tank. I really want to use the gas cap. Then I built a wood frame out of some scrap lumber I have. The tank just sits in it and is held in place by gravity.

Pic four.

I sealed the top off with a piece of metal, allot of gasket sealer and some left over self tapping screws from my metal roof.

Eddie

 

[EddieWalker]

Pic one.

I used my loader bucket to carry it down to the lake. It wasn't very heavy, but it's too far to mess with. I'm parked on the dam here and you can see the lake off to the left.

Pic two.

I used a length of old fuel line from the tank to the pump. To join the two, I put in a plastic, Fram, inline fuel filter. As you can see, I built the wood frame tall enough for the fule to flow downhill to the engine.

The tank holds over fifteen gallons, maybe sixteen.

Pic three.

This shows the dam a little better with the pump on the left at the creek, the backhoe on top and the water on the right.

Pic four.

Here's another picture of the discharge line as it enters the lake. I'm usuing the logs and islands to guage how much the water rises.

Pic five.

This one shows the overall size of the lake. I'm standing at the shallow end of the lake and the backhoe on the far right, is at the deep end. The water at that end is over four feet deep. On this end, there's nothing, but the water is definately rising!!!

Eddie

 

[3RRL]

Eddie,
Looks like you're making progress man! I wish you would get that stop watch. I'll bet anybody out there $100 that my guess is exactly right on the flow.
Eddie, if I'm right I'll split it with you.

 

[john_bud]

I'm still looking for a stop watch and as soon as I find one, I'll do a bunch of timed tests to see how long it takes to fill a five gallon bucket.

Eddie

Eddie, the more buckets you use, the less accurate you need to be with the time. If you use 6 buckets, 30 gal, it will take anywhere from 60 seconds to 30 seconds to fill (depending on who is luckier --- I mean more accurate!)

A watch with a second hand is all you need, heck the old "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" method will be close.

jb

 

[turbo36]

Eddie, I don't know how long your discharge hose is but you might get more output if you shortened the hose so it just went to the top of the berm and then discharged into a sluice of some kind, maybe some large size PVC pipe.
I did a lot of pumping with a 2" Honda trash pump and was amazed at the difference between a 50' and 100' discharge hose. The same applies to the intake hose but the difference can be even more dramatic depending on the efficiency of your pump head. Since these pumps are not positive displacement designs they all have clearance between the rotor and the pump cavity that allows the pump to be "de-headed" for short periods of time with out damage. If you have too much intake or discharge resistance the "slip" loss can be significant.

 

[npaden]

What turbo36 says is VERY accurate. It COULD make a significant difference depending on how much water you are trying to push through the hose.

But in your situation it doesn't look like it would make much difference. Assuming 60 gallons per minute you have less than 1 foot of head pressure in friction loss pushing it through a 3" hose. Here is a friction loss chart for 100' of smooth PVC pipe - Friction Loss Flow chart - FAMOUS PLUMBING SUPPLY I'm sure the friction is more in a hose than PVC pipe, but if you make sure the hose is as straight as possible with no bends, etc. I doubt if it is going to make a lot of difference.

Now if you were going to be pushing 250 gallons per minute through a 3" hose it would make a tremendous difference.

Thanks for keeping us updated on your project, it is nice to see the lake filling up!

 

[Glowplug]

Eddie, the more buckets you use, the less accurate you need to be with the time. If you use 6 buckets, 30 gal, it will take anywhere from 60 seconds to 30 seconds to fill (depending on who is luckier --- I mean more accurate!)

A watch with a second hand is all you need, heck the old "one Mississippi, two Mississippi" method will be close.

jb

Heck, if you have enough buckets you could actually use a sundial!! haha

Eddie--I have enjoyed reading this thread in its entirety. I look forward to the day when the lake is full and you can show us a picture of before and after. Good luck and keep up the good work!!

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks everyone for the encouragment and advice. This is the biggest thing I've ever built, and hopefully, it will remain that way. hahaha

UPS delivered my hose today, so I replaced my leaking home made line and put in the good one.

Than I put down two five gallon buckets and tried to time how long they take to fill up. This really is a two man job, maybe three. The buckets don't want to stay put or upright when filling on the side of the dam. I solved that by standing behind the bucket and using my shins to keep it in place.

Then I couldn't get the stop watch started and work the hose at the same time. It's an old casio watch that I had in my hunting gear. I put it on my wrist and started the stop watch. Than when I hit ten seconds, I put the hose in the bucket.

All my times seem to be from 2.2 seconds to 2.3+ seconds. Those little numbers in the hundreds are just too fast to read!!!!

These two pics show the flow as it's coming out the end of the hose.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[npaden]

It took you 2.2 to 2.3 seconds to fill up 1 5 gallon bucket or 2 buckets?

Either way you are pumping much more than 60 gallons per minute!

If it took that long to fill up 1 bucket then that's between 130 and 136 gallons per minute! If you are filling up 2 buckets in that time then you are pumping between 260 and 272 gallons per minute! Some serious pumping!