Manual well pump system for the upcoming civil strife?

UglyBear

Well-Known Member
As detailed in most survival literature, water is second only to air in survival. Food comes way after.
Thankfully, our mid-Atlantic region is abundant in water, but most people are not prepared to harvest it, if SHTF.

Most of us here in SoMD are on individual wells and septic systems, so unlike the big-city folks, we have some power over our water.

But we don't have power over, well, power. If the SHTF, we will be without electricity pretty quickly, and for long period of time. (If there's a disruption to our electricity generation capacity, whatever is left will be re-directed to keeping essential infrastructure running, like dams, military installations, and water supply for the large population centers -- otherwise powers that be will have even bigger riots on hand) . Us country folk will be mostly left to our own devices.

Talking to most people, even handy old-timers, it seems the only thing people can think of is running gas powered generators to power electric water pumps. It's like there's a brain block to do anything beyond that. Well, gas runs out at some point, but I will still want to live and drink after that, for years and decades, hopefully.

Our grandpas and grandmas have used manual pumps for centuries. Why not now?

Manual pumps? Has anyone installed one, and has experience with one?

I'm especially curious about putting one over existing well, with an electric pump in it.

bisonpumps.com promises to get water from down to 300'.
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
I frequent a solar power forum, and that subject has been brought up many times. There are those who have been very successful at using solar to run deep well pumps.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Our grandpas and grandmas have used manual pumps for centuries. Why not now?


Manual pumps are for ground water .... that is not really fit for human consumption from what I recall that is contaminated with chemicals from run off

Would this pull water from down deep ?

EduPic Energy Resources Images



What you need is a solar / off grid electrical generation solution ...

 

glhs837

Power with Control
If you have the space for cells, and the cash for batteries, thats the way to go. Unless you have serfs, I cant see how you'll have time and energy to manually pump enough water
 

UglyBear

Well-Known Member
Thank you all!
This is interesting... usually I keep away from anything solar, but I guess it got efficient and cheap enough to be viable.
From my cursory search, to get a system that could be used to power an existing pump AND other things (panels ~1k W, batteries, inverter), it would be ~$2k.
There are systems that are all in one — DC pump, panels, cables — for ~$400.
I guess that would be a choice of survival strategy :
1) go “fancy”, get the whole system of which the pump is just a part, where you get water on demand and lights and other things for larger initial money spent.

2) just get the bare essential components — pump works only during the day, gets water into a storage tank at ground level, and that’s where you take water from.

either is better then relying only on rain water collecting. That is almost free, but you have to add three levels of filtration (mechanical, chemical, bio).
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
1) go “fancy”, get the whole system of which the pump is just a part, where you get water on demand and lights and other things for larger initial money spent.

2) just get the bare essential components — pump works only during the day, gets water into a storage tank at ground level, and that’s where you take water from.
Take a bit from both strategies. Deep pumping during the day to a tank, and then a very small pump to feed your needs day or night with leftover power for lights, fridge, etc....

The all-in-one generators all have some drawback, whether power draw limits or charge limits, better off to design your own. I built a system that easily runs a small fridge with power to spare.
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
It was not that long ago that wells in St. Mary's were artesian, or very nearly so. The well on my island property was and same for the place I had in the 7D. Alas...water table is out of reach of most surface pumps now.

Our strategy/plan here at the Gilligan Compound is to make sure we always have a good supply of fuel (gas, diesel and propane) on hand and use that very sparingly and almost entirely for water pumping, in the event of SHTF. For non-potable water, the main house is set up for rainwater collection.
 

Ken King

A little rusty but not crusty
PREMO Member
There are some deep well hand pumps out there, two off the top that I have heard of are Bison and Simple. Bison claims to work to 200 feet and Simple to 300.
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
This is interesting...


I'd look into some 55 gal drums ... store extra capacity in your basement

I rigged up something like this in my buddies house for Y2K .......

10 55 Gal Drums [ bought used from Pepsi] piped together ... water heater dip tubes to draw from the bottom ... plumped to one of the faucetts up stairs [ the basement was unfinished ] so there was a constant flow ... also put on a pressure reducing vavle on the inlet side the street pressure is a bit high in the suburbs

the better thing to do would rack mounted and laid on their side so you could drain them with gravity if need be.
 
Last edited:

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
There are some deep well hand pumps out there, two off the top that I have heard of are Bison and Simple. Bison claims to work to 200 feet and Simple to 300.

An off-grid group I'm part of has a number of members reporting that the Bison pumps worked for them. I wonder how far down the pipe the water in my well is these days.
 

kom526

They call me ... Sarcasmo

Ken King

A little rusty but not crusty
PREMO Member
An off-grid group I'm part of has a number of members reporting that the Bison pumps worked for them. I wonder how far down the pipe the water in my well is these days.
Doing a little reading on these Bison is also getting water down to 300'. Also found out that the Simple pump has an option for a DC motor attachment to run a 1/5th or 1/4th hp and is supposedly an easy and quick swap out.
 

kom526

They call me ... Sarcasmo
What's a "basement"?......LOL
I have one of those down here in the CP. Fully finished and dry as a bone, so there is no way the LW will let anything like those tanks in the basement. Especially now that we are planning on converting the old playroom into a wine cellar/tasting room.
 

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
My summer spent in Ketchikan, Alaska had me showering and dish washing with collected rain water. I got my drinking water in town in a collapsible, 5 gallon container. Toilet was a composter. Most homes on the island had rain collectors because the island got over 200 inches of rain a year.
 
Top