floridasun
New Member
Hello all, new here and glad I found you! I purchased a house in my area and the previous owner already ran the underground sprinkler feed lines, 1†pipe, 3 of them, each might be 200 feet long with maybe 6 heads on one and 8 or more heads on the other 2. He never installed a pump, got divorced and sold the place before he could finish the project. Since I’m in SW Florida and it hasn’t rained here in who knows how long, I figure I better get moving on this. I’ve been looking for a deal on a used, but fairly new pump for a while. I picked up a 6 month old Red Jacket ½ hp Quick set, jet pump, 50 RJA and pressure tank for $50. But I’m kinda thinking it might be a tad small for what I’m gonna need. I’m like most, wanna save a buck, but if I have to I’ll buy a new one if all else fails. I like trying the DIY way first. Semi retired and I love to tinker. Been remodeling homes for about 20 years now. Did my fair share of plumbing, but no wells. This is an investment property so would like to keep the costs down if I can.
My water supply will be from the small creek out back. I extended the previous owners line down and into the creek. I took a 18†sq. x3’ tall plastic garbage can like container, cut it in half long ways. I dug a trench on the bank of the creek , Lined the bottom with half of a hard plastic liner so the mud doesn’t get sucked up. Put in a 3â€s of small stones laid in the Lowes bought creek suction pipe. (About 2’ long of 3†pipe with probably 1000 little slots cut into it. Slid the sock filter over it and then placed more stones ( ¼†to ¾†in size +/- ) about 4 inches in height over the top of the suction pipe. Then place some landscape fabric (that normally goes under mulch to keep weeds from growing through, but lets water in) over the stones with more stones on top to hold it in place. Thinking that it should filter lots of crap out. Also, the suction line from the filter pipe intake to the pump is 1 ½†with a check valve about 1’ before the filter pipe intake, thinking it will hold the pipe full of water when it is not running so the pump does not run dry on startup. Now, the length of the 1 ½†suction line is around 25 to 30 feet with an elevation change of 8 to 10’ maybe.
The pump was used for drinking water from a shallow well I was told.
Questions I have and I know it’s hard since your not there but lets see where we can get. I can supply pictures if needed and more details like actual # of heads, real distances, etc… Just haven’t measured and counted yet.
Is the pump to small to suck that distance?
Did I make it to hard to suck a good volume of water through all of that filtering mess?
Which connections on the pump housing do I use? Illustration link below:
http://www.redjacketwaterproducts.com/pdf/BRJCQUICK.pdf
So, can we do this or should I sit back and wait for RAIN?
Thanks in advance,TJ
My water supply will be from the small creek out back. I extended the previous owners line down and into the creek. I took a 18†sq. x3’ tall plastic garbage can like container, cut it in half long ways. I dug a trench on the bank of the creek , Lined the bottom with half of a hard plastic liner so the mud doesn’t get sucked up. Put in a 3â€s of small stones laid in the Lowes bought creek suction pipe. (About 2’ long of 3†pipe with probably 1000 little slots cut into it. Slid the sock filter over it and then placed more stones ( ¼†to ¾†in size +/- ) about 4 inches in height over the top of the suction pipe. Then place some landscape fabric (that normally goes under mulch to keep weeds from growing through, but lets water in) over the stones with more stones on top to hold it in place. Thinking that it should filter lots of crap out. Also, the suction line from the filter pipe intake to the pump is 1 ½†with a check valve about 1’ before the filter pipe intake, thinking it will hold the pipe full of water when it is not running so the pump does not run dry on startup. Now, the length of the 1 ½†suction line is around 25 to 30 feet with an elevation change of 8 to 10’ maybe.
The pump was used for drinking water from a shallow well I was told.
Questions I have and I know it’s hard since your not there but lets see where we can get. I can supply pictures if needed and more details like actual # of heads, real distances, etc… Just haven’t measured and counted yet.
Is the pump to small to suck that distance?
Did I make it to hard to suck a good volume of water through all of that filtering mess?
Which connections on the pump housing do I use? Illustration link below:
http://www.redjacketwaterproducts.com/pdf/BRJCQUICK.pdf
So, can we do this or should I sit back and wait for RAIN?
Thanks in advance,TJ