water/well pump questions

[Amarksman]

1) Will water I keep in my upright freezer (to take up space) be suitable for an emergency?
2) If so, how long do you think it would stay good for?
3) In the event of a power loss, and my generator runs out of gas, anyone know of a way to get water out of a well?

Thanks
Sean

[jerry]

Not an expert, but from experience.
Water frozen will last quite a long time. We freeze jugs to use for ice for fishig and drink the water as it thaws.

You could get a DC pump to pump water from a well. This would work as long as the batterie (s) are good. You may also be able to install a suitable hand pump. If your water runs through a clorinator, this would have to be taken into consideration as well.

[wunhunglo]

Originally Posted by Amarksman

1) Will water I keep in my upright freezer (to take up space) be suitable for an emergency?
2) If so, how long do you think it would stay good for?
3) In the event of a power loss, and my generator runs out of gas, anyone know of a way to get water out of a well?

Thanks
Sean

Answer to 3 above..............How about the old mark 1 bucket & rope??

If purification is needed, you can easily make a charcoal filter.

[ezearln]

problem is wunhunglo is this a drilled or dug well? And worse how deep? If your well is serviced by a submersible pump you will have to devise a system to power it. Thankfully there are options and choices in doing so. If you have a windmill they can be adapted to turn either an AC or DC generator (make sure it's a generator and not an alternator) as they aren't intended to produce heavy recharge rates and will burn out quickly under high demand. Collect a bank of heavy duty deep cycle batteries (don't use a standard auto battery as they aren't designed to be completely discharged and recharged repeatedly as are the deep cycle) make sure your water storage tank is secure and of large enough capacity to last you at least three days at your highest demand rates. Another option is solar power to recharge your batteries, coupled with inverters you can still power you wells pump.

[wunhunglo]

Small bucket then, with loooong rope???

[Amarksman]

Originally Posted by wunhunglo

Small bucket then, with loooong rope???

yeah, not that kind of well. would be easier if it was. I will try to elaborate a little more on the well deal. From what I can figure, the well is about 50-75 ft deep, and water comes from a pump submersed in the well, and gos to a pressure tank in my house from there. I wonder if I could some up with some kind of DC pump to put in line in my house somewhere and just switch to it in the event of power loss. Now as far as storage, that is something that i need to look into. Right now it basically is an on demand type system besides my hot water tank, which holds about eighty gallons. You guys know of anything out there that is made for inside storage? Or should I look at something as far as outside storage gos. I saw in a thread on here somewhere about bladders, but I think I would be looking at some other alternative.

[wunhunglo]

I'm sure there are plenty of suitable DC submersible pumps out there. You'll need one with a suitable head to pump up to your system, so the depth it is at is very important, as is the pressure of any pressurised system it feeds. About 1 psi for every 2 feet of head.

[OZHUNTER62]

Originally Posted by Amarksman

1) Will water I keep in my upright freezer (to take up space) be suitable for an emergency?
2) If so, how long do you think it would stay good for?
3) In the event of a power loss, and my generator runs out of gas, anyone know of a way to get water out of a well?

Thanks
Sean

Well i reckon you would just get that pretty lady in your avatar to stand near the well and it would probobly come up on its own!!!!!!
Regards.

[Capt'n Mil Coll]

You can buy large plastic tanks larger than your water heater at farm supply stores. You would have to keep it cloranated.

[22-rimfire]

In a survival situation, I'd yank the pump and piping and just use a large bailer to lift water out of the well. I assume you have a 6" well. So a 4" bailer will just slide down real easy. Buy one that has the ball in it to allow you to fill it easier. They make them in stainless steel if you want to go high tech. They also make disposable ones for environmental sampling which would work just fine. They are pretty tough.

[Gray Wolf]

That's a weak point on my property that I plan to address this year. The generator fuel will not last long in an emergency situation. I already have the solar panels and deep cycle gel cell batteries, and the guy that drilled my well said it's easy to piggyback a 12 volt pump onto the existing system.

[mitch_mckee]

Originally Posted by 22-rimfire

In a survival situation, I'd yank the pump and piping and just use a large bailer to lift water out of the well. I assume you have a 6" well. So a 4" bailer will just slide down real easy. Buy one that has the ball in it to allow you to fill it easier. They make them in stainless steel if you want to go high tech. They also make disposable ones for environmental sampling which would work just fine. They are pretty tough.

Yes, this works. Seen several cabins without electricity have a regular well dug and bailed water. Some of these folks weren't camping out. They lived in those places and bailed water every day.

[mos19k]

On the farm we had the well that fed the house which had an electric pump but just a few yards away we had another well that had a hand pump for when we lost power. The hand pump worked great and never had any problems with it.

Here are several choices.

Lehman's - Products for Simple, Self-sufficient Living

[Stopper]

Brigade Quartermasters Ltd.

Whale Gusher Titan Hand Diaphragm Pump, Model# ND4418 | Hand Pumps | Northern Tool + Equipment


I have a pump that you can attach a drill to and it works very well, but I couldn't find the sucker. Northern tool has a few hand pumps and I have around 100 gallons of water stored in barrels using the stabilized oxygen from brigade 1/4masters.

[wunhunglo]

Originally Posted by Stopper

Brigade Quartermasters Ltd.

Whale Gusher Titan Hand Diaphragm Pump, Model# ND4418 | Hand Pumps | Northern Tool + Equipment


I have a pump that you can attach a drill to and it works very well, but I couldn't find the sucker. Northern tool has a few hand pumps and I have around 100 gallons of water stored in barrels using the stabilized oxygen from brigade 1/4masters.

I believe we were talking about a pump suitable to pump water from a 50-75' well?????????????????? ie. discharge head of at least 2-3 bar. Not a bilge pump.

[454PB]

How would you power a D.C. pump?

If you've never pulled a submersible pump from a 75' well, take it from someone who has....it's not an easy job. Even after it's removed, you would have to transfer the pitless adapter and pipe to the D.C. pump, and probably install new wire to handle the increased amperage required by lower voltage D.C.

It seems to me in an emergency it's easier to either store enough stabilized fuel to run an external generator for however long you need water, or siphon the fuel from your vehicles. That's what I do.

[wunhunglo]

Originally Posted by 454PB

How would you power a D.C. pump?

If you've never pulled a submersible pump from a 75' well, take it from someone who has....it's not an easy job. Even after it's removed, you would have to transfer the pitless adapter and pipe to the D.C. pump, and probably install new wire to handle the increased amperage required by lower voltage D.C.

It seems to me in an emergency it's easier to either store enough stabilized fuel to run an external generator for however long you need water, or siphon the fuel from your vehicles. That's what I do.

As stated before, batteries.

I've pulled ESP's from thousands of feet; with the right, equipment, people and mindset, it can be done relatively easily.
But why do you advocate pulling it, if it ain't broke, leave it down there assuming it is totally submerged as it should be, then there's no harm in sitting another pump on top of it. seeing as we're talking about a temporary/emergency type set up then, flexy/or lay-flat hose is all you need for the delivery pipework.

The scenario described at the start of the thread was loss of power & being unable to run his emergency generator.

[Amarksman]

Thanks for all the input. I am going to have to do some more research into my particular set up to see what the best option will be.

[Cyrano]

Regarding powering the pump: Not long ago The Sportsman's Guide was offering military surplus ChiCom hand generators like those our military used in World War II to power radios. You sit on a bench and turn a pair of cranks and the generator makes power. I don't recall the volts and amps it turned out, but if that were an issue you could solve it with a varistat, I should think. Tie it into the DC pump wiring and you could pull as much water as you wanted. Might be worth checking on.

[jimkim]

You might just sink another pipe and put a hand pump on it or maybe a wind mill.