BajaNomad

Getting water up to the house . How would you do it ?

ligui - 3-22-2014 at 10:04 AM

We will be hooking up to the water from the village to our house . The closest water line is 300 yards away . Thats no problem , but the house is located higher then the water pressure will go . We have pressure for the first 200 yards then , .... ?

I'm Thinking i will have to run a pump to push the water the rest of the way up the hill . Then into a water tank for holding .

elevation change from highest water to water tank is about 75 ft . length of waterline from here to water tank is 100 yards .

Any ideas ? Also thoughts on pipeline , materials ? :?:

Thanks for you help :yes:

larryC - 3-22-2014 at 04:35 PM

Just off the top of my head, I would probably run 1" pvc and since you have a 75' head to overcome then I would use a pump that puts out more than 50#. In my fireman days they taught us to figure a 1/2 psi per foot of elevation so 75' divided by 2 is 37.5. With a 50 psi pump or greater you would start out with a positive 12 psi. Another consideration is how many gpm's you want to dieliver, more gpm's bigger pump.
JMHO
Larry

Russ - 3-22-2014 at 05:13 PM

I believe Larry has it down. Is the place where you connect on your property (permission to install a pump station)? Is your power feed at the site where a pump will connect? Have you spoken with the water provider about installing a meter and where? It sounds as though you have your water storage already but is it sufficient to provide for and extended time? Have you looked into having a truck deliver water? And lastly, is there enough pressure form you storage to your home or does that require a second pump? Things to consider.....

Katiejay99 - 3-22-2014 at 05:34 PM

My place is almost to the "T" exactly what you describe.
I made arrangements with a property owner at the bottom of the hill whereby I have a tinaco on his property. The city water fills that and I have a pump beside it that pumps water up the hill to my house and into another tinaco located beside my place. I have another tinaco on my roof and another pump that pumps it from the lower tinaco to the roof one. I have two switches in my house that will manually control each pump but I have them both set up to turn on automatically if the water level gets low in either tank.

It works really sweet!

Santiago - 3-22-2014 at 05:38 PM

Having seen the top of Larry's head I would normally be suspect of anything that came off of it but in this case, I think you can go with it.

J.P. - 3-22-2014 at 06:21 PM

I think you may be over complicating the matter Why not just install a good pump and pressure tank. there are a lot of good dual voltage shallow well pumps out there for around 200 dls.:light::light:

Mula - 3-23-2014 at 06:27 AM

The town water systems will let you have a 1/2"PVC connection ONLY for residential. For commercial, you may apply for a 3/4" connection , but may not be available in a small town.

ligui - 3-23-2014 at 06:37 AM

Thanks everyone . Looks like pump station is in order . :tumble:

rts551 - 3-23-2014 at 09:21 AM

You will need over 35 psi to push water over 75 ft in elevation. (75/2.31)....but that is only part of your problem.

Pressure does not equate to volume, so you need to consider the diameter of the pipe you are using. 1 inch will flow a lot more water than 1/2 inch under the same pressure.

Also remember that the inlet pipe to your lift pump should be the same or larger diameter than the inlet to the pump itself or you will starve it of water.

Sounds like a storage tank at the source will be necessary and a storage tank at the house desirable.

Assistance

David K - 3-23-2014 at 10:23 AM

I have been in the irrigation industry since 1980 and in 1992 co-authored a book on how to easily find the flow of water available and the pressure of the water...





Inside, are informative pages on how water works and what changes the pressure and flow of the water...


We made some charts to help see how water pressure and flow changes with elevation and pipe type and size and length...

Here are the basic limits for the flow of water you should not exceed based on pipe size:





Here is how much pressure is lost per 100 feet, based on the flow and size (and type) of pipe:




Two important facts:
You will lose less pressure by going to a larger pipe.
You will lose less pressure by reducing the flow of water.

The above water pressure loss happens as water moves through pipe (addition loss occurs when water moves through valves and fittings (elbows, tees, etc.). These are called DYNAMIC PRESSURE LOSS.


Elevation changes also change water pressure, even when the water is not moving, called STATIC PRESSURE LOSS OR GAIN. Going downhill increases water pressure and going uphill reduces water pressure (0.443 psi per foot):





If you need anything to help with your design, let me know!

If there is more you would like to read about, I will scan more pages from my book. It is no longer in print, but was a best seller in one horticultural catalog for quite a while! ;)

POPEYE-SCOTT - 3-23-2014 at 10:39 AM

You can look into williamson pumps, attached is a youtube link.

It's a great option if you have no power available to the pump location. We had one in our house in Panama and it was 100% reliable.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWqDurunnK8

Steve&Debby - 3-23-2014 at 06:58 PM

Watch the chart above, galvanized pipe will not flow the same as PVC pipe. There is a thing called friction loss you have to deal with. Friction is lower in PVC pipe.Use PVC, it is easier to work with and will not rust.

David K - 3-24-2014 at 10:08 AM

For sure do not use galvanized pipe... see our note to the right of the pipe type chart. When we wrote the book in 1992, we were still seeing some galvanized pipe systems, so we mentioned it.

ligui - 3-24-2014 at 01:56 PM

Thanks again everyone . We will be starting our project in may . I'll let you know how it goes .

We are going to start finishing our house and the work on the property . Won't be to many more years and i'll be sending photos of the sunrise from ligui/ensenada blanca .

David K - 3-24-2014 at 03:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ligui
Thanks again everyone . We will be starting our project in may . I'll let you know how it goes .

We are going to start finishing our house and the work on the property . Won't be to many more years and i'll be sending photos of the sunrise from ligui/ensenada blanca .


Don't hesitate to send me an email or u2u if you need some advice... irrigation is my business. I was installing some drip irrigation on a Nomad's home today.

What you need to find out is the water pressure where your new pipe will connect, and what size is the pipe you are connecting to. This will get the ball rolling on deciding what size pipe you need and how much pressure will need to be 'added' to get the water up to your tank.

An example:

From Table 4 of my book, you can see that if you start with 50 psi and go up 80 feet in elevation, the pressure will drop to 15 psi. This is static pressure. Likely it is less to start with..

Once the valve at the tank is opened and water flows, the pressure drops more, from friction. You can't afford to lose much if you are at 15-17 psi static (or less).

How much pressure to add with a pump will depend on what that starting pressure is and what size pipe you run and how many gallons per minute you want to fill the tank at.

If you use 1" sch. 40 pvc pipe for the 900 feet of distance you lose 2.0 psi per 100 ft. if flowing just 9 gallons per minute (18 psi for the 900 feet). Static pressure of 17 psi less 18 psi dynamic pressure loss is less than 0, so in this example you will need to reduce the flow or use larger pipe or have a pump do all the work.

Valves, fittings, etc. reduces the pressure even more... Only going downhill or adding a pump increases water pressure.

Do some fact finding on pumps in the Loreto region, see how they are working for people...

monoloco - 3-24-2014 at 03:38 PM

Another way to go is to have a pila near the source with a direct (no batteries) solar pump, and panels, that will pump water whenever the sun shines, to another pila or tinaco at your residence. That way you don't need to run a power line to the pump below.

pauldavidmena - 3-24-2014 at 03:38 PM

Thanks to @ligui for asking the question, and to @David K and others for the informative responses. This is food for thought for anyone thinking of purchasing land in Baja and building (like me). It seems that while in the U.S. we consider water to be a basic service provided by the local municipality, it is not that way in Mexico. It pays to be informed.

ligui - 3-24-2014 at 03:42 PM

Thanks David , i will get in touch , i've got other ?'s about drip lines on the property using gray water from the house .

Ligui

Steve&Debby - 3-24-2014 at 08:45 PM

"Galvanized pipe will flow the same amount as sch 40 PVC" The book is wrong, new galvanized pipe will not flow the same as PVC pipe.