water pressure

[heehaw]

very good report..all i have seen buried around here for this type of project is concrete tanks, the local company seals the inside of the tank when its going to be used for water storage/filtering. usually the top of the tank is left out of the ground slightly, to prevent ground water entering, and to allow maintenance. i'm using a fiberglass tank, but some folks use concrete burial vaults, for above ground installation. in one case we installed the water valve from an ice maker in line with the well pump, and put a timer on the valve.
heehaw

 

[JATO_RaT]

Gee Patrick, I probably shopuld not even bring this up, but my water pressure is about 125 PSI, I get about 114 GPM. Its done by an irrigation canal that is drawn from the higher elevations and builds pressure from the drop. I am on a party line with others. The cost is about $300 a year. Being ditch water, it is not potable, contains some debris so a filter is required to keep the sprinklers happy. My well is used purely for domestic water and puts out the maximum the pump can pump, about 20 GPM at 90' deep. I also have a pond, about 1/2 acre that is fed by a year round spring. I suppose if I wanted I could pump from it, but the 125 PSI and all those GPMs would be far more costly for me to pump. I do feel fortunate to have this available to me and can feel for folks who must pump and have less then desireable GPM's. Always thought that if things were not available here, I would get a solar setup going and pump to a water tower. My irrigation habits would change considerably. Rat...

 

[ejb]

Outstanding narrative...I vaguley remember seeing it before. WHen I have more time I'll need to study it more closely.

BTW: Maybe it is in there, but did you have to worry about the water freezing in the tank? Here in New England we do.

 

[theboman]

Been on both ends. I grew up with a drilled well and iron water with just enough pressure. In the past 20 years we got "city water" here and the pump station is 200 yards from where I live.
A shower was always leaking. Outside if you used quick connect adapters they'd not stay...blow off. After te leaking shower got too much I called in a plumber (I ain't no plumber). He replaced a valve and spring, ta da, no leak. He said we had a lot of water pressure. I said I think too much and explained about the quick connectors. He asked to see the water hose. I turned it on... Immediately he said that's too much pressure when he saw the hose jump when the water got turned on. The plumber gets his water pressure gauge, hooks it up, then taps the meter 2-3 times. He changed a few fittings and tapped the meter some more. He then got another meter thinking the first one was bad.
He said he didn't know how there was a water line still in the house 170psi was his reading on 2 meters.
The water deptartement came that day and turned way down the pressure, and they have 165 psi coming from the pump station and we are in the first few houses from the water tanks down hill flow.

 

[mikim]

<font color=blue>solar setup going and pump to a water tower</font color=blue>
I wanted to do that - but the $$$$ was just outta sight and so was the height of the tower needed to let gravity provide the pressure - figured if I needed an electric pump anyway to make the pressure - what was the point of putting out the dollars for solar? Going to try to go with an emergency generator instead. (we lose power a lot)
mike

 

[JohnS]

PaulT,

That is a very interesting project. Nicely photo documented as well. While my place has very good volume and pressure, my parents place does not. Their water supply seems to get a little worse each year. It is getting to the point, that no amount of water management will suffice. There is only the two of them, and they are very, very, conservative on the use.

They had a new well drilled this winter. Ended up with just a deep hole in the ground! Right now they are debating on going even deeper, or having a high pressure steam treatment done to try to open the vein. Your solution might be a good alternative for them to consider. I will forward links on to my dad, to take a look at your project.

While the coming summer might be the real acid test for your solution, have you been very happy with the results so far? Have you moved away from very conservative use patterns? Do you know, if such a solution is acceptable to the banks/mortgage requirements?

 

[patrickg]

Rat, No worries, mate! I am usually happy for the good fortune of others. I used to have 120 and sometimes more PSI of pressure back in San Diego decades ago. Before I knew how much pressure I had I was concerned with the frequency of having to do "PLUMBING", i.e. replace the ruber washers in the taps. The house was built in 1928 and had some real nice Chicago hardware and it wasn't easy to find parts. Eventually, I got a gauge that screws on a hose bib to see how much pressure I had and was surprised to see it go over 120. Well, I went out and bought a nice all brass and stainless pressure regulator and a spare parts/rebuild kit. Usually what happens is by the time something wears out or needs repair/rebuilding the parts aren't available anymore so I like to get the parts up front. In this instance the regulator was working fine nearly 20 years later when I sold the place and gave the box of parts to the new owner.

With all that pressure you have you could employ some pretty good filters up stream of a good RO (reverse osmosis) unit and get potable water. I would check with an expert regarding microbiologics and see if you would need a silver unit or UV or anything.

Please, no sympathy, we get enough water from our well. The low sustainable flow is a nuisance but not even bad enough to warrant a storage tank. Folks with good water but really low sustainable flows sometimes put in a storage tank (non-presurized) and pump from that to the house with a pump capable of giving the desired PxV performance.

The meter is in and the lines burried to my mom's house for rural water. She is connected to a 6 inch main line that runs across the front of my property. It should be flowing water by the end of the year. A spur off of that 6 inch runs down the section line past my mailbox and driveway. Unfortunately, that run is a 2 inch line and my meter is connected to it about 1/4 mile from the 6 inch. I will have nearly a thousand feet of run from my meter to my building site so will probably go with 2 inch. Additional bad news is that the meter outlet is 3/4 inch so even with 2" inlet and 2" outlet run there is still a 3/4 inch orifice that will drop pressure when there is flow. Great static pressure but mediocre flow is my expectation. I may end up with an inline pump, we'll see.

Patrick

 

[PaulT]

Yes, we do have to worry about freezing here! I think somewhere in the thread is a discussion regarding that issue. Since we had a very mild winter, I can't really conclude that I will not have any problems. The tank company in based in Minnesota, so I guess they know about freezing winters pretty well. I think since more than 1/2 the tank is below the frost line, I'll be OK. My only real worry is that the top crusts over and suspends the float switch in the open position as the water level goes down (never turning on the well pump). If that ever happened, I would just bypass the switch in the junction box. By the time the tank was low again, the crust would probably be gone, since we don't have deep deep freezes for more than a week or so in late Jan (10-20 below).

 

[PaulT]

John,

I am very happy with the fix. It seems to be a good, long-term solution. I don't think my bank cares at all how I get water. If I sell, the buyer's bank will require a test, and I believe the criteria is flow rate of 10gpm sustained for 2.5 hours, or something like that. No problem, now/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. As for modifying our conservative water ways, we have 2 young kids, which means several wash loads per day. We never hesitate to do laundry at a specifc time anymore. We just pop it in and let it run. Also, I have a lennox complete heat HWBB system. My baseboard hot h20 is also my potable hot h20 (think shower). The propane burner can generate water at 135 degrees as fast as I can pump cold water into it, for as long as my propane tank has gas in it. I can take a3 hour shower if I want/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif I love long, hot showers, since I am NOT a morning person - sorta like sleeping an extra 15-20 minutes in the morning/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif. Seriously, if your parents want to speak to me about it (or if you do), send me a note. I live in Vestal, which is close to you, if I recall. Are your parents in the area, also?

 

[JohnS]

Thanks Paul. I emailed the links to my dad today. He lives outside of the Utica area. I'll wait and see what kind of questions he has.

BTW, do you know the following acronyms? TMS, CSBCS, APPS, and SPBS. If so, I suspect we know each other /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I couldn't tell 100% from your pictures.