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A year or so back, my BIL in South Khakilackee who works for a well drilling company was slow on work. He was coming to visit for a while and he was able to convince his company to let him take his work truck over here in return for us buying a well from them. Worked out great for all involved.
We ended up with a hand pumped deep well setup out of his visit and learned a little bit about wells.
Most of the "pitcher pumps" you see in hardware stores or in catalogs are designed to pull water from 25 feet or less. These are the small ones about 18 inches tall that you can work with one hand.
Years ago, we bought a couple of those and a "drill your own well" kit from Lehmans. What a joke! Using a backhoe we dug down about 15 feet and then started pushing the pipe in further to reach a total depth of about 23 feet. We hit water when we were digging. We followed the "instructions" to the latter but were not able to make it work. We filled the pipe with water and primed the pump, that didn't help either.
Later on another trip up north we stopped in Lehmans. Asked to talk to someone about this product and never got any further than him saying "GEORGIA? That won't work in clay! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" To wit I asked him why the hell didn't they tell me that when I purchased it? To wit Festus sat with a stupid look on his face. :mad:
Anywhoo, this one DOES work. Not sure how much of a "deal" we got on it via "family prices" or not but it was around $3,600. with a 250 foot well into the aquifier and the pump installed. A chunk of change, without a doubt but worth it IMO.
Water has always been our most fragile system in our infrastructure. While this won't do much for our day to day normal operation, it could be our sole source of water in a worst case EMP/TEOTWAWKI type deal. The genset will run the other deep well and storage tanks will give us some pressure and that's how we "roll" normally ;) But this requires some power- genset. And while you can have logistics planned and squared away for that, stuff does happen.
This pump doesn't seem like it puts out a lot and even my BIL said "I don't think it's putting out enough." But I went and got a 5 gallon bucket and really started working it.
Let me tell you what- you want a workout, try to fill a 5 gallon bucket with this as fast as you can. With my son timing me I got a 5 gallon bucket out in 1 minute 35 seconds. It didn't kill me, but my breath and pulse rate was definitely up by the end of it. In contrast our normal irrigation system fills a 5 gallon bucket only about 20 seconds faster (with sprinklers going).
I don't know if it will be able to be seen in the pics, but my BIL showed me a hole drilled in the huge bar that goes up and down as you pump- "this is for attaching to a windmill" he said. Cool! Never knew you could do that.
That would definitely be the way to go, and he said he has installed similar setups with windmills for cattle ranchers to fill water tanks in the field for their cows.
The pump itself is tough as nails, stands well over 4 foot tall and weighs a good bit. I was told that their is one part below the pump that can break but in 10 years of well and pump work, he's never seen one break, not even the regular use ones.
This would be the perfect thing for folks trying to foster a "community" type approach (no that isn't my plan) to survival, provided you could provide security for it. I'm NOT advising that, but I say that for the "I will survive with my subdivision" types. You want to REALLY have a chance to make that plan work? Spend the $4K and do something REAL for your "community." Better chance of people gathering together and defending something like that, versus defending their falling apart McMansions and non working plasma TV's. :)
Dare I say for the price of a quality night vision unit ;) you might be able to put one of these in and always be assured of quality water. Course you need the night vision to help defend it also :)
Lowdown3
We ended up with a hand pumped deep well setup out of his visit and learned a little bit about wells.
Most of the "pitcher pumps" you see in hardware stores or in catalogs are designed to pull water from 25 feet or less. These are the small ones about 18 inches tall that you can work with one hand.
Years ago, we bought a couple of those and a "drill your own well" kit from Lehmans. What a joke! Using a backhoe we dug down about 15 feet and then started pushing the pipe in further to reach a total depth of about 23 feet. We hit water when we were digging. We followed the "instructions" to the latter but were not able to make it work. We filled the pipe with water and primed the pump, that didn't help either.
Later on another trip up north we stopped in Lehmans. Asked to talk to someone about this product and never got any further than him saying "GEORGIA? That won't work in clay! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" To wit I asked him why the hell didn't they tell me that when I purchased it? To wit Festus sat with a stupid look on his face. :mad:
Anywhoo, this one DOES work. Not sure how much of a "deal" we got on it via "family prices" or not but it was around $3,600. with a 250 foot well into the aquifier and the pump installed. A chunk of change, without a doubt but worth it IMO.
Water has always been our most fragile system in our infrastructure. While this won't do much for our day to day normal operation, it could be our sole source of water in a worst case EMP/TEOTWAWKI type deal. The genset will run the other deep well and storage tanks will give us some pressure and that's how we "roll" normally ;) But this requires some power- genset. And while you can have logistics planned and squared away for that, stuff does happen.
This pump doesn't seem like it puts out a lot and even my BIL said "I don't think it's putting out enough." But I went and got a 5 gallon bucket and really started working it.
Let me tell you what- you want a workout, try to fill a 5 gallon bucket with this as fast as you can. With my son timing me I got a 5 gallon bucket out in 1 minute 35 seconds. It didn't kill me, but my breath and pulse rate was definitely up by the end of it. In contrast our normal irrigation system fills a 5 gallon bucket only about 20 seconds faster (with sprinklers going).
I don't know if it will be able to be seen in the pics, but my BIL showed me a hole drilled in the huge bar that goes up and down as you pump- "this is for attaching to a windmill" he said. Cool! Never knew you could do that.
That would definitely be the way to go, and he said he has installed similar setups with windmills for cattle ranchers to fill water tanks in the field for their cows.
The pump itself is tough as nails, stands well over 4 foot tall and weighs a good bit. I was told that their is one part below the pump that can break but in 10 years of well and pump work, he's never seen one break, not even the regular use ones.
This would be the perfect thing for folks trying to foster a "community" type approach (no that isn't my plan) to survival, provided you could provide security for it. I'm NOT advising that, but I say that for the "I will survive with my subdivision" types. You want to REALLY have a chance to make that plan work? Spend the $4K and do something REAL for your "community." Better chance of people gathering together and defending something like that, versus defending their falling apart McMansions and non working plasma TV's. :)
Dare I say for the price of a quality night vision unit ;) you might be able to put one of these in and always be assured of quality water. Course you need the night vision to help defend it also :)
Lowdown3
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