Need some insight

[volcamp]

I have a slow running creek on my property. I am toying with the idea of tapping into it for periodic use to water my horse pastures. The challenge is the creek is a good 50 feet below the reat of my property. It is also very restricted by woods. I would need to pump the water up the 50' rise over a distance of 150 yards to get to my first pasture. At that I would pretty much be on plane with the rest of my property. I would like to ba able to run a one inch line to the various pastures. No looking for massive flow. I have no idea of what type of pump or system would be required to fit this task. I also have no idea how to properly design the intake. Any insight/experience would be greatly appreciated.

 

[timswi]

I have a slow running creek on my property. I am toying with the idea of tapping into it for periodic use to water my horse pastures. The challenge is the creek is a good 50 feet below the reat of my property. It is also very restricted by woods. I would need to pump the water up the 50' rise over a distance of 150 yards to get to my first pasture. At that I would pretty much be on plane with the rest of my property. I would like to ba able to run a one inch line to the various pastures. No looking for massive flow. I have no idea of what type of pump or system would be required to fit this task. I also have no idea how to properly design the intake. Any insight/experience would be greatly appreciated.

A large holding tank with a garbage pump in the creek might be more controllable..Besides, in some areas, if you pee in your backyard it becomes a wetland...Just talking regulations.

I had a large creek on my last property. Problem was it wasn't reliable as far as overall flow. With a pit in the creek, it may have been a little better.

 

[Redgoatea]

Just get a sump pump, drop in into the creek and then pump up into a large tank. You can then gravity feed the pastures. Doesn't sound like you're planning on growing anything so you just need to water when it gets dry. Run some black polyethylene along the pastures with some bleed holes in it and open a valve on the tank when you wanna water it.

 

[Mousefield]

We have a 3/4 HP pump next to our creek that we use for watering outside. Ran power about 150 ft to where the pump is at the creek, it pumps up about 25 ft and still gives good pressure. I used a 1 inch black poly pipe and have about 7 hose bibs off of it. Could you get power to your pump? I have my intake in a plastic garbage can with many small holes drilled in it. Our creek is also small and slow running, have the garbage can next to a cedar log in the creek and it creates a small hole about 2 ft deep in the creek bed. Has worked for us the past 11 years.

 

[rd_macgregor]

Depending on the size of your creek and the available head, you might be able to use a hydraulic ram pump. I know a local fellow who built a couple of these in his shop for livestock watering. I've even seen plans for hydraulic ram pumps made out of plastic pipe!
Here's some info from Clemson U:
Home-made Hydraulic Ram Pump
BOB

 

[inveresk]

You might also want to consider a solar powered pump such as in the link below.

www.otherpower.com/danf_waterpump.html

 

[5030tinkerer]

I'll echo the sump pump suggestion. I used a sump pump basin and a sump pump with float control (to prevent the pump from running draw) in a stream. I used bricks at the bottom of the basin to hold the basin down and let the water flow over the top of the basin to fill it. The hole I dug for the basin with the backhoe held about 400 gallons, but I didn't want to take a chance of the pump running dry if the stream slowed down.

I used 1.25" HDPE pipe up to a PVC manifold that I built for watering trees and a garden and powered the pump with a Christmas tree light timer since my electric ran into the basement of the house. I used 3/4" HDPE pipe along a tree run off of one my manifold loops and could water 400 trees simultaneous with drip/mist irrigation (I just poked nail holes into the pipe at the base of each seedling). I set the timer to water for 30 minutes twice/day.

It worked incredibly well.

In your application, a pressure and holding tank could be used to automatically kick on the pump in the event that pressure was diminished, just like a well house uses, when a spiggot was to be opened.

 

[pat32rf]

Most sump pumps are only rated to pump water up a few feet (8-12). They have high flow, but not much pressure. If you need to pump 50' up, then you are going to need over 25psi just to get up that 50 feet.
I'd create some sort of resevoir at/in the creek and use it to feed a normal shallow well jet pump BUT make sure that you use a controller with low pressure protection. One that shuts the pump down if the pressure drops to zero, instead of one that keeps the pump running until it burns out.
If you are just watering stock tanks you should be OK with a max pressure of 50-60psi and a float valve in each tank.