Crazy idea regarding a deep well

She doest have to lift the rope or bucket just the water

You're serious aren't you?

So imagine you have a 600' rope with a bucket full of water and it is 600' feet down the pipe. You are holding the end. You start to pull it up. What is the total weight of the load you are lifting? Think about it.

Price big capacity windmill pumps at antique shops against the price of new ones. Put your money in the best cylinder and pipe and center rod ect that you can buy. A high priced cylinder will make the leathers last longer, but ultimately, youll also need a pipe dog when you take up the pipe to replace the leathers. Ive got one of those shot buckets. And for even in a cistern there a pain. ya drop it and it fills, somewhat slowly. Then you pull it up, and at 5 gal thats 40lbs. then youve either got to tie off the rope, and hold the shot bucket over the bucket your going to carry to whatever, or hold it with one hand while you manipulate the shot bucket over the other bucket, lower it enough so that the lip of the shot bucket is into the bucket then with your other hand pull the release. Total pain in the butt, and i paid 40 for the bucket used, and I forget how much for the old time pully.

put in the cylinder pipe and sucker rod, and if you can not afford the wind mill at first, put in a pump jack and run it with a gas motor, (i know many ranchers do this), and in one way it is very efficient, as they know how much they want to pump, they pour in that much fuel, start the motor up and let it pump until it out of fuel, when the fuel is out the tank or cistern is full, and NO electricity is used, a 700 foot deep well would take a big windmill, your probably looking at a 16' mill, at lest a 14' mill,
http://www.aermotorwindmill.com/Sale...nQuestions.asp on a 1 7/8 cylinder, (a 1 7/8 cylinder can use a 2" pipe and you can change the leathers with out pulling the pipe, just pull the sucker rod out) that is how my windmills are set up,

a new 14' mills is close to $8000 and a 16' mill is near $10,000
http://www.aermotorwindmills.com/aermotor_windmills.htm
and then there is the tower, you be in the $5000 range for the tower, (note: new prices), a little less for the 14' and a little more for the 16' that would be a 47' tall tower,
http://www.aermotorwindmills.com/towers.htm
and there are used rebuilt units, but in this size they may hard to find, they are a good value.

if you're going solar, several of the charge controllers will use the excess power to power loads.... such as water pumps...

several pumps are designed for off gridders, using 12v... that'll only pump when the sun is out, using a dedicated solar panel, or the excess from your solar system... they aren't cheap, but they are available...

If I had water available elsewhere on the property, I'd develop it there and pipe it to the house... pvc is cheap... wouldn't want to have to pump water 600'... even ON the grid...

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

donsgal, I will repeat the idea I posted in another water related thread...

if you want a scouce of DRINKING water thas clean and endless, build a STILL. you can distill ANY water into clean pure drinking water.

water only needs to be "clean" to wash clothes... free form sediment and crud.

from tinkering with moonshine still designs I know, from testing them, you can boil off alot of distilled water in an hour...
you can also set up a ssolar still, naywhere there is sunshine, made about the same size as a cold frame for your garden. Ive made them with a 4x4 plank frame, a sheet of clear plastic and a coffee can. in ful sun you can get a good few quaRTS per still of excellent clean water, distilled, from anything you set in the solar-pit. pots of surface water set in the solar still pitt will distill. The nice thing is.... you dig a few of these with a hose to fill it, and a hose to draw out the distilled water.... and they produce drinking water with no real work involved.

wintertime... well you can use the moonshine still to make water off the heat from the woodstove.

getting water from 600 feet down is alot of work. filtering rain water and distilling drinking water is less work and far more practical.

Unless youve got the cylinder right under the pump, and that would only work in rather shallow wells. Our well was 4 sections of pipe down to the cylinder, and then a short piece, say 6ft under the cylinder. So I would say it was around 100ft deep, with the cylinder right above the water table, or just in it.

HI, just a few random thoughts. Do you know how many wells are in the area, in use? Do your neighbors have trouble with the wells going dry? If you are really going down 600' to get water, try picking up 600' of rope and the bucket and the water. You may need a horse to pull it out. And before you do that you'll have to pull the pump--probably ain't gonna happen with just you to pull 600' of (hopefully??) pvc pipe, wire, and a 30# or so pump. You may be lucky to have the pump at 150', but still you aren't going to get that pump out of there by yourself(maybe you just cut it and let it sink? ). I would get cisterns and pump the water into the cisterns, keeping them full, and also have a set up to switch over to rainwater. Do you know what the rainfall is in your area? I'd figure the cost of cisterns and trucking water pre-shtf (and adding rainwater to the supply). It may end up cheaper than drilling a well that may end up at 800' or more, be crappy water, or go dry. Dig a pond to store water for livestock(even if it's seasonal).

How far away is the nearest stream/lake/spring. Get in shape to hump a 5 gallon jerry can on a frame , personally I'd rather do that than pull 600' of rope for nowhere near five gallons.

ps, living in a valley does not equal lots of water. Where we are up on a ridge we have plenty of (rusty) water from 160'/ 65' pump depth, 1000' elevation. DOwn in the valley a mile down the road, they have 500' foot wells that go dry in the summer. Yay witchers! Smart folks here look for the good springs.

LOL you really havent done this have you? You need TWO ropes in case one breaks.
The best way to do that is with a spool and a loop of line thus the downline wieight equals the upline weight and the counter weight equals the bucket if you want.

i was kinda serious about animal power. i cannot find the links to the devices i have seen, but if a pump can be powered by a windmill, it can be powered by a donkey...or whatever.

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this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

While I can't say for certain I would think that it would be possible to rig a bicycle to a winch and a series of pullies. I'm also wondering if a large solar pool pump would work.

edited to add. I think this might work for you... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capstan_(nautical)

some other ideas...for what they are worth.

a wood powered steam engine...hey, it's self reliant.

keeping it simple...how about a wind or steam powered air compressor pressurizing the well casing. hopefully water would be forced up the pipe.

no matter what you end up doing, i think it is necessary to fill a cistern.

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this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

Thanks for asking the question, i've been wondering the same--our well IS over 600', but i have forgotten what the standing water is, it will vary a lot tho, cause water table is dropping here in the ozarks-and it will drop a lot more when the bio-diesel plant goes in at rogersville. tremendous amount they pump a day. or so the news accounts say--

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no more thoughts? i like this thread.

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this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

steam engines are very high maintence. but like you Ive thought of useing them .My thoughts are something like As long as Im throwing wood in something I might as well throw it in a boiler and get heat AND energy.Any small steam engines or turbines on the market or should we take this to another forum?

how are you going to get the water out of the well to fill the steam engine?
lol

electric pump silly!

Yikes! That'd be 17,000 cu ft of dirt/rocks to dig out....

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"electric pump silly!"

Her desire is to be as non-dependant on gas or electric as possible. That's why we've mostly been leaning towards solar or wind power.

But I'm thinking oh, oh - you DO live in the ozarks - how about taking that four wheeler down to the lake or stream with a couple food grade water barrels and a hand crank pump. (Don't get caught. )

Treat it: How to Purify Drinking Water

You could manually bring back 110 gallons at a time which would last awhile if frugal and continue to collect rain water also. Couple barrels snuck from the lake and a couple barrels rain water would sure beat the $$$ of a well!

gotta love those hills.....

Ozarkguy

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