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Lexington, Ky

I've noticed a number of growers on this site water their plants out of 55 gallon drums. Curious if anyone is willing to share how you move the water out of the drum?

I have a good flowing creek right beside my growing area and I'm thinking the best way to move the water is to have a pump in the creek to fill the drum and then a pump to move the water from the drum to the plants. Any suggestions? If pumps are the answer, does anyone have any specific pumps to recommend? For what it's worth, I will have to move the water about 15 feet up and an additional 10 feet laterally. Also have the occaisional cow in the creek so durability is a concern.

1/10/2005 12:34:26 PM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

What is the median temperature of the water when you want to use it. You may not have to tranfer the water to the 55 gallon drums. Being that your from Kentucky. I am guessing it is warmer the the 54 degrees our well water is.
For a pump any irrigation pump should work just make sure you have a foot valve on the end, to maintain your prime. Then also have some way to keep debris from clogging things up.

1/10/2005 12:59:44 PM

Lexington, Ky

Mountain water, she'll be cold! I need some type of set up that I can operate without being in the creek...10 foot drop and snakes every now and then....does this eliminate the foot valve variety?

1/10/2005 1:09:33 PM

Western Pa.

I think they call mine a "trash" pump, get one that can pump a little more than just water,(because you will!)You'll want the pump to be positioned close to the source. I also recommend it be an industrial grade high pressure pump, mine goes up to 75 psi for irrigation lines, and also fills 2 150 gallon tanks. I put the tanks on top of the kids playset tower, and ran irrigation tubing (gravity fed) to the patch. I use pond water and the sun warms it up before I use it.

1/10/2005 1:38:49 PM

Lexington, Ky

Hey killer, what diameter gravity feed lines? Good idea!

1/10/2005 2:41:57 PM

Atlanta, Georgia

Honda WX-10 or WX-15 portable gas powered pumps are awesome if you can afford them.
My 4 year old can carry it and it has about 36psi so almost as good as house water...
Michel

1/10/2005 2:54:15 PM

C N Y

i think for a filter before the pump you can use a 5 gallon bucket with some type of cloth wrapped around it, making sure you have a ton of holes drilled into the bucket, like 1/4 inch or so. the bucket is placed into the stream.
the water has to go through the cloth to fill the bucket, thereby filtering-out any large dirt clumps, rocks, snakes, etc., lol, COWS!!!LOL! yes, you'll want the pump close to the stream and i wonder if they have like a one-way valve that will only allow the water to flow one way, so the water won't be drained back into the creek once the pump is shut-off. if the pump is basically level with the stream, this shouldn't be a problem, but is electricity a problem way out there, at 1320 feet from the house? lol. inside joke. perhaps have a couple of barrels, at least one of them with water in it warming-up while the other is being used. some growers use a BLACK barrel or barrels to
increase the water-warming effect of the sun. good luck! eric

1/10/2005 4:41:52 PM

Lexington, Ky

LMAO Eric. Thanks. Great idea on the filter. Talk about confusion, try an internet search with key word "water pump"....must be a gazillion, at least 1320 of them fo so.

1/10/2005 4:48:33 PM

[email protected]

Throw a big rock (clean) or brick into Eric's bucket so it sinks.

1/10/2005 5:50:02 PM

C N Y

at first i though Tremor was being funny again. well, he
was, but yeah, some serious ballast or weight would need to be in the bucket.
NARROW your search down to "sprinkler pumps".
at the Home Depot right near where i work, they have one,
probably the SAME one for at least a year now, lol, but i don't want to spend 219 bucks on one just yet. FLOTECH
you can get jet pumps in your local want-ads paper quite often, but i think most of the time i wish i had a "sprinkler pump" rather than a jet pump. hey, 40 PSI at the plant is no joke,
50 or 60 even better. hopefully whatever you get might be able to suck the water up from the stream for you, but that can subtract from the pressure to begin with. another thought is to be able to use the pump to bring the water in, and then with a flick of a switch be able to use the same pump to pump out the water that has been warming-up in your other barrels. a simple VALVING issue! i think that is what the original idea was, but maybe you can put all your money into ONE really powerful pump---
YEAH!!!---------man, i even spelled THAT rong a few times, lol..........eric

1/10/2005 6:55:09 PM

Western Pa.

1320,

My pump is a 5 h.p. Briggs and Stratton Industrial Plus. It comes with a strainer basket for suction, I think it would suck any cloth covering right thru the pump! Trash pumps will hold up better if and when you happen to suction some sediment, which is bound to happen. Intake and out can both be piped with 2" pvc pipe, although when I use it for whiz head sprinklers, I feed into a 3" line to build up more volume.I also use a 2" pvc check valve to keep it from backflowing. I broke my 2" line down into 2-1" to feed two tanks. Gravity lines from tanks are 1/2 irrigation tubing.My pump is 6 years old and has outlived many "cheaper" pumps. I bought it new for about $600. E-mail me if you have any more questions!

1/10/2005 7:41:26 PM

If you don't want a gas pump. An electric sewage pump could be an option. On the farm my dad has one of them in a very muddy ditch. He wrapped chicken wire or something like that around the whole pump to block any big objects like sticks or stones, and puts it on a chain raised just above the suface so it is not sucking up dirt on the bottom. Good pump. Drains the ditches very fast. Good Luck

1/10/2005 7:57:46 PM

Indiana

You can also get a semi-trash pump it will handle murky/silty water, check northerntool.com to get an idea what you might want. (then check ebay for a better price) if your gonna leave the line in the creek get a check valve/foot valve to put on the lower end so you don't loose the prime or have to wait for the pump to get the water back up the hill. I pump water about 8 foot up a hill out of the gravel pit behind my house and use a 2 inch semi trash pump i got on ebay this year I'm gonna use a 12 volt RV water pump and a battery with a solar charger to pump it out of the barrels i just have to work out some kind of float switch to keep from burning up the pump.

1/10/2005 8:01:04 PM

Oakland, CA, USA

Hi 1320, I heard about "ram pumps" while reading about Permaculture farming. I did a search on Google and found a bunch of hits. Here's one of them that briefly explains what they are good for. http://www.theramcompany.com/ They use no electricity (or other fuel, just water pressure built up by falling water) and have only two moving parts(!). "Generally with a ratio of 1-foot drop to 10-foot lift, your pump will deliver approximately 15 to 20 percent of the water that it uses." A real fire-and-forget solution if you don't need high pressure in high quantities at a moment's notice. You could hook one of these up, using the stream gradient to power it, pouring into an elevated barrel and just leave it running all the time. You'd need some kind of automatic over-fill preventer (only because you want the water to sit and warm up for a while, right?), otherwise, you could have an overflow pipe at a certain height in the barrel that would return excess water to the stream. The same overfill device would let you fill up several barrels sequentially without any need for valves and switches. They are relatively cheap, too, particularly when you consider that they operate for free. -Erin.

1/10/2005 8:01:30 PM

Indiana

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=57015&item=3865902414&rd=1 i would be bidding on this one if i didnt already have one

1/10/2005 8:07:13 PM

Oakland, CA, USA

Here's another cool no-fuel pump for streams, and this one relies on current, not gravity: the sling pump. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=57015&item=3865902414&rd=1

-Erin.

1/10/2005 8:49:54 PM

C N Y

wow, that's a nifty idea---use the power of the stream itself to pump the water up to its destination.
same little light musta come on in someone's head way back when they invented the water wheel, lol! i'm enlightened!

1/11/2005 2:30:47 AM

Lexington, Ky

Thank you all, these are great ideas.

1/11/2005 9:16:21 AM

Montoursville, PA

One great idea that has not been mentioned is that DER is not a small town, in China. Know your legal right and cost, of following the rules, before pulling any steam water out to your advantage. Most states have laws governing such needs.

1/11/2005 10:52:44 AM