Hydrolic Ram and Cistern Info Needed

RebelDigger · #1 08/15/10, 06:58 PM

We are going to sell our Victorian house here in Blue Mountain and have looked at a nice little farm out in the country (waaay out). The old farm house is still there as well as a nice sized shed, chicken coop and a pump house. At any rate, in the Hatchie Hills most folks back in the day got their water from the numerous springs. This place once used a hydrolic ram which ran the water to a holding tank in the pump house then the electric pump sent it on in to the house under pressure. There is also an existing cistern by the back porch which I presume was the original water system for the house before the ram was installed. The ram is still there even though the house has the availability of community water and the ram has probably not been used for about 20 years. I would like to get it going again and use it to keep the cistern topped off or pipe the water from the ram directly to soaker hoses for the garden. Anybody on here familiar with this technology and with cleaning up an old cistern (it is curretly full of water so I know it still holds water) that could give advice would be most appreciated since, until we looked at this place I had never even heard of a ram in my life. Although we will use the community water for now, I want to get these alternate water supply sources working "just in case" they become necessary plus, save money on watering the gardens.

rambler · #2 08/16/10, 12:13 AM

Hydraulic ram pumps use the power of flowing water to push a portion of the water uphill (make pressure). So, the more pressure you need, the less flow of water you get - more gets 'wasted' as power. So you can fill a cistern, but you won't get a pressurized line of water from them.

Mother Earth News made one of plastic parts years ago when that magazine used to be good. I'm sure a google search will turn up many, many plans.

To clean the cistern, bleach, empty it, sweep up the junk, and should be good to go for non-drinking uses. Be careful you don't over-sweep it or pressure wash it - sometimes the concrete is sealed with loose powder, and can become porus if you're too agressive.

--->Paul

MELOC · #3 08/16/10, 01:49 AM

you would need a mighty big ram and a good flow from the source to be able to irrigate effectively. i think the ram from clemson university pumps @ 10% of what flows through it. i actually built one of these to play around with. i had a nice trickle (in surges) from a garden hose at @ 12 feet of elevation from the pump. this was powered from only about 3 feet of drop or "head" and about 10 feet of supply pipe.

you probably couldn't use drip hose, you would have to use the hose with the bigger holes. you also probably couldn't hold enough pressure to irrigate the entire length of the hose. then again, maybe your ram is a monster...some systems have been designed with huge rams that can deliver water over big elevations to supply cities.

what you could do is to fill a holding tank that is elevated and use gravity to irrigate.

here is a link to the pump i built...

http://www.clemson.edu/irrig/equip/ram.htm

Harry Chickpea · #4 08/16/10, 10:14 AM

You may find that parts are available or the manufacturer even still in business. There were a couple of major makers. I found it way kewl when I went to the website of one of the English ones that they had products in the field that had been in use and operating for OVER 100 years, and supplied new ones and/or parts.

The Clemson model is a very basic one. I built one as well, and am not very satisfied with it. The lack of a decent clapper valve and issues with flow limit it. A good ram can do much better.

Cleaning a cistern can be as simple as a dirty water pump (or even a siphon), a garden hose, and a length of 3/4" PVC with a wet vac sweeper attachment duct taped on. Look in a pool store for other ideas.

RebelDigger · #5 08/16/10, 09:30 PM

Thanks for the ideas. So, it looks like what I need to do is get the cistern cleaned out, get the ram running and let it pump the water into the cistern then use some kind of electric pump to pump water from the cistern to the garden. The ram was used to pump water to the pump house to supply the house at one time and the electric pump that pumped from the holding tank to the house is still there so at worst I suppose I could get that going again and seperately set the cistern up to catch runoff from the roof. I hate to not use these resources esp. since Mississippi has such hot, dry summers and you really have no choice but to water gardens to keep them alive sometimes. So, free water provided by the ram and/or the cistern would really help to keep costs down.

MELOC · #6 08/16/10, 11:28 PM

if you can set up some sort of tank at any suitable elevation above the garden, even a small ram would be effective at filling it and gravity does wonders to deliver water. even a 300 gallon tank set on a frame 6 feet high would help. a small ram could keep it filled by running 24/7.