Best well pump for drip hose irrigation

I am trying to find some information on selecting a pump for my situation. Our property has an old well encased in 24” diameter concrete pipe. It is approximately 10’ deep with a water level currently at about 7’. We have been using this for drip hose irrigation in a small garden for the past 3 years. We have never pumped all of the water out. The pump is a Utiltech 1/2HP convertible jet pump. Each spring we have needed to turn the flywheel to get the pump running but this year the pump will not hold pressure. I am wondering if this is an appropriate pump for this use and worth repairing or if we should try a submersible pump, irrigation pump or something else. Thanks.

With only three feet of water, a submersible is out of the question. I am surprised you get enough water out of a well like that to do much of anything. A utilitech pump is a big box pump and if it's convertible it needs a shallow well jet on it, does it have one?

sorry for the misunderstanding... we have a constant 7' of well water and during the 3 summers we've been using the utilitech jet pump (it has a bladder type pressure tank) we've never gotten the water below 5'.

our problem is the utilitech pump which i fear the pressure switch has failed and they apparently do not make parts anymore... we've been happy with the pump otherwise... so my mistake was buying this cheap pump... we are now looking at purchasing this pump.

http://goulds.com/jet-pumps/bf03s-shallow-well-jet-pump/

it has a good reputation. we are nearing retirement and can not afford to be replacing a well pump every 3 or 4 years. we have raised beds and use a drip system and soaker hoses... the furthest bed is about 75' and the utilitech (before it crapped out) did just fine... so i'm hoping this pump will suit our needs. we only use it in the summers for the garden, nothing more.

thanks for your input it is valuable to us.

tws

I didnt even know they still made the Goulds balanced flow. At least that is what they used to be called. They were for space saving in northern cabins.

How do you use this pump? Do you open a faucet to water, or do you just turn on the electric and let it go for a while? The reason I ask is, I'm quite sure that pump (which had no price) is expensive. I sell the Betta Flo SW pump shown here: http://shop.pumpsandtanks.com/index...ducts_id=292&zenid=3qji11acm5b7i2fluu2qvhciu7
If you don't need a tank, this is the pump for you. If you do need a tank, the items bought with this pump shown below in the link will work just fine and probably save you some money.

Thanks speedbump,

i was hoping i don't need a tank (as it and it's necessary parts are just more things to malfunction) i'm hoping just a straight (tankless) shallow water jet pump will do the job. i can manually turn the pump on and off as needed to water my garden. what i don't know is the pump HP i require. like i said my farthest reach is 75' with mixed soaker hoses and drip hoses. having learned a lesson by purchasing a cheap lowes pump i would rather get something reputable and especially a pump that can be serviced if needed; a pump whose parts don'e become obsolete. i dont' mind purchasing a quality gould pump... most of my local well pump specialist recommend the gould.

i have a question. can a shallow water jet pump pressure be regulated? i ask because i want to have enough pressure to reach my 75' but not enough to over pressure or suck my well dry or damage the drip hoses. i will not have a regulator on my garden hoses, just turn the pump on then off as needed. the 1/2 hp utilitech worked well for 3 summers is a 1/2 hp gould without a pressure tank and switch equivalent?

thanks again for your help.

tws

Not too many pumps are equivalent to the utilitech. They are very poor quality. The Goulds is a good pump, so is the one I sell. Goulds does a lot of advertising, that's why their name always comes up. They also cater to dealers. The Goulds you were looking at was a 1/3hp. That would probably be as good or better than your 1/2hp utilitech. They are over rated. The SW I sell will also blow away the 1/2hp you have. The motor's on my 1/2hp have a 1.65 service factor which means they are actually .825 hp. The utilitech has a 1.0 SF.

The SW will max out at 60 psi as will most decent jet pumps. They pump plenty of water at around 50 psi. When you wire it up, you will just wire the voltage from the house directly to the wires in the pressure switch that directly feed the motor. That will take the switch function out of the equation. Then it will just run as long as it has juice and won't blow anything up. When your done watering, turn off the power.

thank you once more speedbump,

i understand about the gould and advertising... they come up first in most searchs. i also understand that the franklin motors are what make the unit superior - may or may not be true. my wife and i have been trying to educate ourselves on this most important aspect of gardening OUR WELL. anyway your input is invaluable... if we were to want to regulate our water output beyound the ball valve we currently have on the exit of the pump can or should we consider a cycle stop valve? and can one be mounted without the necessity of a pressure tank? what other ways can we control/regulate water to drip and soaker hoses that vary in distance from the pump?

or need we even bother?

if we want to fine tune a pump system can we add something like a csv later? if we want to conserve pump electrical use etc?

thanks again,

tws

Goulds has nothing to do with Franklin anymore and when they did, it was only on the submersible pumps.

A cycle stop valve is only used with a pressure switch and tank. It's to keep the pump from cycling on and off and to give constant pressure. If it really was necessary to regulate the pressure to your drip irrigation (which I doubt) you could use a normal pressure regulator like they use for city water. You can get them a the big box stores. Like I said, jet pumps typically don't make over 60 psi and that's at practically no flow. Lower the flow, higher the pressure and vice versa.

that is such excellent news speed bump... we shall proceed with this configuration... i'll post back with results.

thanks again for all your help.

tws