hand pump well??

[beaglebiz]

I would like to put in an old fashioned hand pump well. Our water table is really high here...our house well is semi artisian, but relies on an electric pump when the power is out. I was looking on Lehmans website and saw the well pumps (hand), and wished I had one. Will a well company dig one for you, or is this a do it yourself??
Has anyone done this??

[fin29]

We bought the basic hand pump from Northern Tool and we're very pleased. Our well is only about 25' deep, but it does a servicable job. Hey, for what we paid, our expectations have been well surpassed.

[THETOOLMAN]

Does northern have the whole thing? pump Rods & barrel at the borrom?

[Cabin Fever]

I ordered all I needed for my sandpoint well and the deep well hand pump from a local wholesale plumbing supply house. I saved a lot of money over Lehamans or other internet source.

[fin29]

Originally Posted by THETOOLMAN

Does northern have the whole thing? pump Rods & barrel at the borrom?

It came with the pump and a rubber leather. That's it. We bought 1 1/4" black plastic pipe and a foot valve at the hardware store. We replaced the rubber leather with a leather leather. All told, the whole thing cost us $150 between all the parts.

[HermitJohn]

The Chinese clones are pitcher pumps (cylinder above ground built into the pump body) suitable only for cisterns or very shallow wells, even the long handled version is just their short pitcher pump with longer handle and an extension on the bottom to make it look like a real long handled pump, it doesnt have cylinder and sucker rod, etc that go down into a well. All of these are marginally functional and intended for decoration, not daily use.

There is someplace on internet plans to make a real long handled pump out of pvc. People have posted the link a few times but I dont have it.

Otherwise probably need to look at Lemans or pump supply place that still handles these or go hunt down an old one and rebuild it. I think only reason these kind pumps are still made at all is there are places where old style windmills power them through a pump jack apparatus to water cattle in remote areas without electric. Or some parks and waysides on secondary roads still have them where its not practical or cost effective for electric pressurized system.

I dont know but dont think well drillers want to do very shallow wells. Easy to contaminate and not very profitable for them. If your area not real rocky you can drive a sand point yourself. It will be 1 1/4 galvanized pipe and you will have to use a pitcher pump. And since its a pitcher pump with cylinder above ground, means most likely you will have to prime it every time you use it. I lived with such for many years. Its a pain but you get used to it. Pitcher pump used in such application also wears out the cup leathers much quicker than a long handled pump on a dug well with cylinder down in the well. So you want to keep couple spare leathers around for replacement.

[fin29]

What Hermit said is 100% true--my rig would never stand up to daily use, and the leather is starting to give out already, after less than a year (though the kids are a little too rough/fast when pumping). I wouldn't rely on it except for occasional situations. In my case, I use the water to water the plants in the front yard and we'll remove the foot valve this winter (and keep priming water handy and thawed) in case we might need it during an emergency. If I were going to rely on it for any more than that, then I would pony up for something nicer.

[minnikin1]

We just had one installed. A well driller did all the work.

[Cabin Fever]

Originally Posted by minnikin1

We just had one installed. A well driller did all the work.

Looks just like the one me and my brothers put in.....

[minnikin1]

Good job! How deep is your well CF?

Ours is 172' but the water column was at 20' -
so we only put pipe down to 80'.... we figure we can add more later if we need it.

Getting it primed is a lot of work because the length of the stroke is SO
far, but once it gets going it's not too bad.
We're very happy to have it as an emergency back-up -

[Cabin Fever]

Ours is a sandpoint well that my brothers and I pounded in to a depth of about 25 feet. The watertable is at about 15 feet. A pitcher pump would have worked given this setting, but an outdoors pitcher pump will not work during the winter (the leathers freeze). Consequently, I used the deep well pump where the cylinder is below the watertable. We can use the well all winter long.

A foot valve placed below your cylinder will keep the well primed up to the point where your weep hole is in the supply pipe. Our weep hole is about 5 feet below the surface (below the frost line).

You can swap out that gooseneck spigot for one that screws to a garden hose. With that you can pump water directly to the garden without carrying it.

The hose spigot has a shut off valve. This allows you to attach a hose or pipe to the threaded opening directly behind the spigot. You can turn the spigot valve off and attach a gas or eletriic suction pump via this threaded opening on the back, if desired.

[katlupe]

We have used a basic pitcher pump only, for our water supply ever since we moved here 9 years ago. The critical factor in the freezing weather is to raise the handle of the pump when you are finished pumping so that the water drains back down the cylinder. Then you only need a small cup of warm water to pour down the pump to thaw it, wait a few minutes and it should thaw. We have never had a problem with it in the winter.

We do have a pump we bought from Lehmans a few years back that you can screw a hose on to water the garden. It seems more trouble to me than it's worth. We put it on in the summer as it can't be used in the winter. To prime it you have to loosen the fitting with a wrench and I don't have the time to bother with that as I use a lot of water. We didn't switch the pumps this year as our garden didn't need us to water it as we got alot of rain.

katlupe