Garden Hose Booster Pump?

[MNBobcat]

I've been googling and not found my answer.

I need to grow grass in an area a long way from the house. I was wondering if anyone has ever ran a garden hose say 150 to 200 feet and then fed that hose into a booster pump and then continued on another 100 feet or so to a yard sprinkler?

I'm thinking a pump in the middle to restore the pressure needed for the sprinkler. If you've done it, did you use a normal well pump or some kind of special booster pump?

Thanks!

 

[Lelandwelds]

A. Buy 3/4" hose and/or
B. Run PVC pipe. Put faucet on end.

Odd. I never thought about it but my hose and my cord reach about the same distance.

 

[oosik]

I have over 800 feet of 3/4" garden hose. I've run 250' to a "ka-chunk, ka-chunk" Rainbird sprinkler with no pressure problems. My house water system has a max pressure of 60 ppsi.

 

[MarkE]

I use a pump similar to this Shop Utilitech 1-HP Stainless Steel Lawn Pump at Lowes.com on my shop water faucet to wash my car since pressure was low in that location. When I tried to use a pressure washer instead it would constantly run out of feed water since it pulled harder than the water supply to that location could keep up with. It should work for your sprinkler.

 

[radios1]

with 3/4" hose you'll lose 33 PSI at 300 feet.. at 10 GPM.. not good. Friction Loss Tables the tables are correct, but the calculator for 3/4" has a bug, and won't work for that diameter.. 1" and up works fine. you really should use 1" or larger for 300 feet.. and yes, a BOOSTER pump is what would work for that small hose to bring the pressure back up..

 

[TractorGuy]

I have run 500' of 1/2" plastic sprinkler system pipe and run a single sprinkler. No noticable difference in sprinkler distance. I mounted an $8, 360 degree spinkler head on an old light tripod about 5' high.

Pain to have to keep moving but got the job done. I cut the pipe into 4 pieces and put male and female hose repair ends in it to make it more manageable.

I have a horse and a half well pump with the cut off pressure set to 60 psi and on at 40 psi. I likes me some water pressure.

 

[s219]

What might work is to get some black poly irrigation line, 1" 100psi rating, which has a pretty large diameter and dramatically lower losses. I have used that long distance. It's not too expensive.

Also, is there any notable elevation change you also need to consider? I ask because I ran 1/2" PEX to my pier several hundred feet away, but because of a 40' elevation drop I add back quite a bit of pressure. Friction losses can still throttle the flow rate somewhat, but you'd never know. If you're going in the opposite direction, uphill, then it's a different story of course.

 

[RNeumann]

with 3/4" hose you'll lose 33 PSI at 300 feet.. at 10 GPM.. not good. Friction Loss Tables the tables are correct, but the calculator for 3/4" has a bug, and won't work for that diameter.. 1" and up works fine. you really should use 1" or larger for 300 feet.. and yes, a BOOSTER pump is what would work for that small hose to bring the pressure back up..

Yep the friction loss is the key to understanding what’s going on.

The booster pump should be near the source. It doesn’t help to put it in the middle in this case- in fact it’s a hindrance that could only serve to reduce volume and ultimately pressure.

 

[MNBobcat]

RNeuman,

Good point. I forgot pumps push better than they pull. Thank you everyone for all of the suggestions!

 

[radios1]

Yep the friction loss is the key to understanding what’s going on.

The booster pump should be near the source. It doesn’t help to put it in the middle in this case- in fact it’s a hindrance that could only serve to reduce volume and ultimately pressure.

if you do it that way, you'll have to increase the pressure to 33 PSI over the 60 PSI house pressure though.. 93 PSI.. which is why tall buildings don't do it that way, they use a pump every I think it's every 10 floors, so they don't have to use 10,000 PSI pumps at the first floor..