Well pump selection advice needed

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rotax

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Here's a livestock watering system and I need help with to select the well pump components. Its a system designed by the county but they leave the pumping plant decisions up to the owner.


There is a new well dug to 165 feet with 6 inch casing. Static water is seen 15 feet down and the well produced 40 gpm when tested. The well driller didn't give what the dynamic water level was while test pumping.

The pressure tank will be about 30 feet higher than the well location. I might have to trench 4 to 500 feet to get to the pressure tank from the position of the well. The highest waterers will be 30-40 feet higher than the well top. Most of the pipe will be 2 inch pvc and the furthest distance about 1400 feet away. The design says there's 5 feet of friction in the piping.

They say that the demands are 1750 gallons per day and peak demand is 12 gpm. I think I need to figure out a suitable pump and then the drop pipe, pitless adapter, wiring and tank requirements will flow from that?

I am helping a friend out on this because I did one on my own farm. We started with a functioning well, though.

I joined up to see If I could learn from advice about this and other projects, thanks for any input!
 

Valveman

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Without knowing the pumping level you just need a good guess. With such a good producing well I doubt the pumping level is much deeper than static. But figuring 100' pumping level would give some cushion. To pump 12 GPM at 50 PSI from 130' to the pressure tank, you will need a 1HP pump like a Gould 10GS10. If there are no taps in the line prior to the pressure tank, a PK1A with at least a 10 gallon size pressure tank will deliver 50 PSI constant as the flow varies from 1 to 12 GPM. If you have modulating float valves on the livestock water you might want to use the PK1ALT, which the LT means less tank. Then you can add a 20 gallon size tank which will help when the float valves are working at less than 1 GPM. With non-modulating float valves the 10 gallon size tank would be plenty.
 

rotax

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Fantastic. I will have 2 taps before the tank. The design calls for a 44 gallon pressure tank minimum (for whatever reason) but with the caveat "consult a professional plumber"

two of these cattle waterers

and 4 of these waterers
 

LLigetfa

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A CSV serves two purposes; one to provide constant pressure; and two, to reduce pump cycling. If constant pressure is not an end goal, a larger tank could reduce cycling even further than a small tank.
 

rotax

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Yes I was looking at 60 gallon pressure tanks and saw that 80 gallons was the same price. The csv info is interesting.

Here's another curveball: The owner is sort of interested in tying more fixtures into his new well. His house sits on a hill and feeds a small cottage and a good sized horse barn below it. When people use a hydrant full blast at the barn to fill a conventional water trough, his pressure tank at the house falls to zero while the pump is on! 60 gallon tank there but no idea about well pump size.

The pressure tank for the new well is going to live inside the aforementioned barn and would be sort of easy to tie into the existing plumbing there. then the barn and cottage could be disconnected from the main house, theoretically.

I think there are 3 bathrooms in cottage/barn system. Is number of toilets used to calculate gpm or is it square footage, etc?
 

Valveman

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"Tying more fixtures into the well pump" is another good reason to add a Cycle Stop Valve. Even an 86 gallon size pressure tank only holds 20 gallons of water. That means without a CSV the pump will cycle on and off for every 20 gallons used. WITH a CSV the pump only cycles for each use of water, even if the water "fixture" is on for a month. As long as you are using more than 1 GPM the CSV is supplying exactly the amount you are using, the water is going right past the pressure tank as if the tank wasn't even there. The only time the tank is used is when something is using less than 1 GPM, like when a horse waterer is just topping off the trough. Even though the CSV will work fine with the 86 gallon size tank or any size tank, the 20 or 44 gallon size tank is plenty because of the CSV. And up-grading to the 20-44 gallon size tank is only recommended with the CSV because of the low use horse waterers.

Rule of thumb is 5 GPM per normal 3-2 house.
 

rotax

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If the requirements are bumped up to around 20 gpm, does that bump the motor hp requirement to 1.5? thx
 

rotax

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Ok I'm finally ready to drop stuff down the hole. I'm doing 1 1/4 poly pipe and #10 wire. I see it suggested to not use a safety rope, torque arrestors etc but what about those disc standoffs? One video i watch suggested electrical tape to affix the wire to the pipe about every ten feet.

The few well caps I have opened have had the drop wires joined to the feeder wires with wire nuts in a birdsnest fashion on top. Is this standard or is a splice kit usually used initially then cut out and wire nutted if/when the pump gets pulled at a later date? Some of the pics I see have the submersible wire running back down the conduit to be connected to the feeder wire underground somewhere?
 

Valveman

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Torque arrestors and wire guards are just bad bandaids to try and help solve some of the problems caused by the pump cycling on and off too much. But they cause more problems than they solve. Use double jacketed wire taped every 10'-20' and eliminate the excess cycling. Pumps, wire, and everything in the pump system will last longer for doing so.
 

Reach4

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Leave some slack in the wire. I suspect the poly might relax (stretch a bit) with time.
 

hatenewcrapjohn

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Don't know if i am on the right topic but i do have a question regarding what an adaquate jet pump model should be for an 80ft well 13 feet to pump would be without burning it up?
 

Valveman

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Don't know if i am on the right topic but i do have a question regarding what an adaquate jet pump model should be for an 80ft well 13 feet to pump would be without burning it up?
Be glad to help but best to start a new thread. Hit the "post thread" button on the top right of the forum home page.
 

hatenewcrapjohn

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Valveman, you are a great help in these forums like this helping others answering questions like you are. I am grateful to be brought up to specs on the well pump manufacturing companies since things almost always change with years and decades gone by and nobody that doesn't install them isn't going to know things they probably want to know prior to doing it themselves. I don't want give Franklin any money for taking the way out they chose to do knowing this history i do now plus i think i know what happened with that red lion why is stopped which was my fault - basically i put the wrong size nipple threaded adapter into that pump that was supposed to have been 1 inch both ends when it was 3/4 barb tightened the clamps over it and left enough space in that pipe that the pump wasn't going to get enough water pushing through it to allow it to work properly and long story short probably i bet i warped the impeller and damaged the motor and introduced air into the line so there was no way it have worked from the information i read online. Big thanks to you!!
 

Valveman

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Actually you could hang the pump on 1/4" pipe and it wouldn't hurt anything. The 1/4" pipe would not let enough water pass to supply a house or anything, but it only has to move about 0.5 of a GPM to keep the pump and motor cool. I don't think the 3/4 pipe was your problem.
 
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