BobJackson
Member
Hi everyone,
I really appreciate any help that anyone with knowledge of well pump systems can offer, and hopefully there are some water pressure gurus on here that love calculating these things. We purchased our house a bit over a year ago and get our water from a very shallow well. We already have a jet pump in our well house that pumps water into a holding tank in the basement, where another jet pump is set up to provide the daily water usage. Floats in the basement water tank trigger the well pump to start and stop. Last year we ran about 150 feet of garden hose from the the taps on the house out to our garden, which already seemed a bit ridiculous but was our only option. At that point we immediately planned to install a separate pump solely for the garden. I figured there was no point pumping water from the well into the house, just to pump it back out of the house again. Since then we've installed a UV system in the basement for the household water, and running the garden water through that makes it even more ridiculous. The UV system does have bypass taps, but I'm not into turning those every time we want to water the garden, not to mention the water is being pumped twice.
With that bit of backstory done, our plan is to install a new, separate jet pump in the well house for garden and yard use only. I've done a fair bit of research on jet pumps and what might work for us, but this type of water system setup is still very new to me. I plan on running a larger water line from the pump house to a junction at the top of the hill (mostly level with our yard) that would split into 3 smaller lines to service the different parts of the yard.
First off, these are the measurements (close approximates from measuring with a tape measure) of what water lines we need to run. The pipe from the pump house up to the junction at yard level is around 100 feet, with an average uphill incline of 35-40 degrees (I plan a 2 inch line for this). I've used an online calculator to figure this is about a 75 foot vertical rise. From that point, we'd run a smaller line (maybe 1 & 1/4 or 1 & 1/2) out to 150 feet, with a gradual decline in elevation, for the garden taps. The second line from this junction would be about 125 feet, with about a 10 foot rise, for the single tap in the back yard. There will also be another output from this junction to water the central part of the yard, but that's really no distance and is basically a garden hose attachment for 50 feet of hose.
I won't ever be using more than one outlet at a time from this junction/splitter at yard level, so figuring out water needs for various hoses isn't needed. My main concern is the garden. To add to this, the final plan is to run the new garden jet pump inlet down to a somewhat nearby creek (need to figure the cost of water rights first), so I'm hoping to buy a pump now that will work for this longer water pull in a couple years. The distance from the pump house to the creek is about 225', with an estimated 20' drop. I understand that buying a jet pump to pull water up 4' from my current shallow well is likely a very different situation from buying a pump that will pull water a 225' distance at a 20' rise, but I wanted to mention it. With the vertical distance of 75' from the pump to the yard, combined with the future suction lift of 20', I figure this is 95' of total head. I read that jet pumps are only suited for lifts up to 25', and was wondering how strict those numbers are. It's pretty difficult for me to measure the exact vertical difference from the pump to the creek, so if my number is low that vertical lift could be over 25'. Would a jet pump just fail to pull anything from the creek if the suction lift was 30'? (plus the 225' distance of water line).
Back to the current water lines we'll be running and not the possible future line to the creek, I've done a bit of reading about friction loss and looked at charts, and figure this would be around .55 PSI for the 100' 2 inch pipe and 2.25 PSI for the 150' smaller pipe to the garden. I know that's the PSI the charts are talking about, but does that friction loss affect the total head? Will the water still pump to the same height but just leave the pipe at a lower pressure/volume?
I've been looking at a lot of pumps online, and one them that I keep coming back to is the Red Lion RJS-100-PREM ($500 CDN on Amazon). I see some from EcoFlo with slightly lower performance for half the price, but they're thermoplastic instead of cast iron. I hear Goulds are great, but they seem really hard to find in Canada. There's a place across the country that has a website with Goulds pumps, but no pricing. I haven't contacted them yet about it. Here's a link to the Red Lion spec page: Premium Cast Iron Shallow Well Jet Pump RJS-XX-PREM Series - Red Lion
I almost just went ahead a bought this pump, but figured I would try this stupidly long post about our water needs and see if someone more knowledgeable than me might stop me from making a bad purchase. I'm not looking to cheap out on this, but also don't want to buy something that's twice what I actually need. I keep coming back to 1HP pumps after looking at different charts, but maybe that size of pump is wrong for this setup.
A big thank you to anyone who has any opinions or info about what I might need for this setup.
I really appreciate any help that anyone with knowledge of well pump systems can offer, and hopefully there are some water pressure gurus on here that love calculating these things. We purchased our house a bit over a year ago and get our water from a very shallow well. We already have a jet pump in our well house that pumps water into a holding tank in the basement, where another jet pump is set up to provide the daily water usage. Floats in the basement water tank trigger the well pump to start and stop. Last year we ran about 150 feet of garden hose from the the taps on the house out to our garden, which already seemed a bit ridiculous but was our only option. At that point we immediately planned to install a separate pump solely for the garden. I figured there was no point pumping water from the well into the house, just to pump it back out of the house again. Since then we've installed a UV system in the basement for the household water, and running the garden water through that makes it even more ridiculous. The UV system does have bypass taps, but I'm not into turning those every time we want to water the garden, not to mention the water is being pumped twice.
With that bit of backstory done, our plan is to install a new, separate jet pump in the well house for garden and yard use only. I've done a fair bit of research on jet pumps and what might work for us, but this type of water system setup is still very new to me. I plan on running a larger water line from the pump house to a junction at the top of the hill (mostly level with our yard) that would split into 3 smaller lines to service the different parts of the yard.
First off, these are the measurements (close approximates from measuring with a tape measure) of what water lines we need to run. The pipe from the pump house up to the junction at yard level is around 100 feet, with an average uphill incline of 35-40 degrees (I plan a 2 inch line for this). I've used an online calculator to figure this is about a 75 foot vertical rise. From that point, we'd run a smaller line (maybe 1 & 1/4 or 1 & 1/2) out to 150 feet, with a gradual decline in elevation, for the garden taps. The second line from this junction would be about 125 feet, with about a 10 foot rise, for the single tap in the back yard. There will also be another output from this junction to water the central part of the yard, but that's really no distance and is basically a garden hose attachment for 50 feet of hose.
I won't ever be using more than one outlet at a time from this junction/splitter at yard level, so figuring out water needs for various hoses isn't needed. My main concern is the garden. To add to this, the final plan is to run the new garden jet pump inlet down to a somewhat nearby creek (need to figure the cost of water rights first), so I'm hoping to buy a pump now that will work for this longer water pull in a couple years. The distance from the pump house to the creek is about 225', with an estimated 20' drop. I understand that buying a jet pump to pull water up 4' from my current shallow well is likely a very different situation from buying a pump that will pull water a 225' distance at a 20' rise, but I wanted to mention it. With the vertical distance of 75' from the pump to the yard, combined with the future suction lift of 20', I figure this is 95' of total head. I read that jet pumps are only suited for lifts up to 25', and was wondering how strict those numbers are. It's pretty difficult for me to measure the exact vertical difference from the pump to the creek, so if my number is low that vertical lift could be over 25'. Would a jet pump just fail to pull anything from the creek if the suction lift was 30'? (plus the 225' distance of water line).
Back to the current water lines we'll be running and not the possible future line to the creek, I've done a bit of reading about friction loss and looked at charts, and figure this would be around .55 PSI for the 100' 2 inch pipe and 2.25 PSI for the 150' smaller pipe to the garden. I know that's the PSI the charts are talking about, but does that friction loss affect the total head? Will the water still pump to the same height but just leave the pipe at a lower pressure/volume?
I've been looking at a lot of pumps online, and one them that I keep coming back to is the Red Lion RJS-100-PREM ($500 CDN on Amazon). I see some from EcoFlo with slightly lower performance for half the price, but they're thermoplastic instead of cast iron. I hear Goulds are great, but they seem really hard to find in Canada. There's a place across the country that has a website with Goulds pumps, but no pricing. I haven't contacted them yet about it. Here's a link to the Red Lion spec page: Premium Cast Iron Shallow Well Jet Pump RJS-XX-PREM Series - Red Lion
I almost just went ahead a bought this pump, but figured I would try this stupidly long post about our water needs and see if someone more knowledgeable than me might stop me from making a bad purchase. I'm not looking to cheap out on this, but also don't want to buy something that's twice what I actually need. I keep coming back to 1HP pumps after looking at different charts, but maybe that size of pump is wrong for this setup.
A big thank you to anyone who has any opinions or info about what I might need for this setup.