New home setup question

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Cvail

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I’m building a house and I’m trying to figure out how to set up my water. I have a great producing shallow well on my property but it is 1200ft from the home site. The county wants $5000 to put in a meter and I would then have to run 1500ft of line to the house. We are in the country with a county electric co-op and the power goes out all the time. I have a 22kW whole home standby generator. I DO NOT have standby power at the well location. I’m an engineer and I fully understand lift, head, friction, ect.

That being said what I want to do is bury a 500gal tank at the home site and feed that tank from the well. Since it is just my wife and I, 500 gallons would last us a while and I won’t need a high flow rate to feed the storage tank. I have a portable generator that I could run the well pump off of if I need to.

What setup should I run from the storage tank to the house? I was thinking a submersible in the 500gal tank that is fed from the well to a pressure tank in the garage. That way if power goes out my standby generator will run the pump in the tank and if power is out for more than a couple of days I can hook my Honda generator to the well pump and feed the holding tank.

I’d like to have 60lbs into the house and we will have a bathroom over the garage.
 

Reach4

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You are not going to be able to suck water from a well 1200 ft away. You need to push water if you have much lift or distance. There is a good chance a 1/2 HP submersible pump in the well could move the water, but you would need to provide power to the well. The change in altitude for the trip plus how far down the water is will be imporatant to know.

The GPS in your phone might be able to give altitude at each end. Or use topo maps.

I have not run the wire voltage drop numbers, but it is possible that you might want to boost the voltage for the trip from the house to the well, and then reduce it back for the nominal 230 volt motor. It is even possible that solar cells could keep that tank filled.

Now if you were thinking that the submersible in the tank would be the pressure pump for the house, that is good. And you were thinking that the coop could provide the power at the well often enough to fill the 500 gallon tank.
 

Cvail

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You are not going to be able to suck water from a well 1200 ft away. You need to push water if you have much lift or distance. There is a good chance a 1/2 HP submersible pump in the well could move the water, but you would need to provide power to the well. The change in altitude for the trip plus how far down the water is will be imporatant to know.

The GPS in your phone might be able to give altitude at each end. Or use topo maps.

I have not run the wire voltage drop numbers, but it is possible that you might want to boost the voltage for the trip from the house to the well, and then reduce it back for the nominal 230 volt motor. It is even possible that solar cells could keep that tank filled.

Now if you were thinking that the submersible in the tank would be the pressure pump for the house, that is good. And you were thinking that the coop could provide the power at the well often enough to fill the 500 gallon tank.
The plan is to use the existing shallow well pump to feed the tank at the house and a submersible or booster pump at the house with a pressure tank in the garage. I would like to have at least 60psi/15 gpm into the house from the tank.
 

John Gayewski

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Look into the CSV/pump/tank combo. Valve man is the best in the business and will likley be along shortly to comment.
 

Reach4

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The plan is to use the existing shallow well pump to feed the tank at the house and a submersible or booster pump at the house with a pressure tank in the garage. I would like to have at least 60psi/15 gpm into the house from the tank.
I am pretty sure that the shallow well pump at the house will not be good at pulling the water from the well 1200 ft away. I am not certain. But if it is possible, you would need a foot valve down the well. Filling the pipe with water at the well to get things primed would be certainly a postitive, if this plan could work at all.

What looks like flat land could change altitude by many feet over 1200 and not be noticed.

It may be that aluminum #8 may be big enough for maybe a 1/2hp SQ pump motor. But maybe #6 after doing the calculations more carefully. Cable would go in the same trench as your SIDR polyethelene pipe, I think.

Would you need to run a ground wire? I don't know, but if not, this looks like a lower end for your shopping:

I am not a pro.
 

Valveman

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Yes the shallow well pump can be a long way from the cistern and booster pump. Running the well pump with a generator will work, but is completely manual. Just make sure the booster pump is protected from running dry in case you don't get the well pump turned on before the cistern is empty.
 

Reach4

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Yes the shallow well pump can be a long way from the cistern and booster pump. Running the well pump with a generator will work, but is completely manual. Just make sure the booster pump is protected from running dry in case you don't get the well pump turned on before the cistern is empty.
I think he proposes to put the shallow well pump at the house+cistern, and suck water from the shallow well 1200 ft away.
 
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