Water Pumping, Public and Private
Sharon May 9th, 2009
The very best thing about being invited to be a speaker at various environmental and energy events is that I get to meet the other speakers and hosts of interesting people. One of the coolest people I sort of met (briefly) at the conference in New York’s north country was a middle school shop teacher by the name of Jim Juczak (and his seriously cool wife and daughter). They have an intentional community and farm, and he’s a tinkerer and scavenger. I got to see several panels that Jim was on, as well as his talk about creating a cheap homestead which he and Krista did together, and was thrilled by them all, but most impressed by the very first one, which offered a solution to a major problem for a lot of people.
You see, nearly everyone who relies on wells loses their water access during an extended power outage – and 17% of the US population has no access to a municipal water supply. You can put a pump on a very shallow well cheaply, but most wells are more than 25 feet, and that’s a solution for only a very tiny number of people. The cost of putting a manual deep well pump (only possible down to about 220 feet, so a better solution with higher water tables) in adds up to several thousand dollars unless you can do it yourself – that’s a tough sell for rural households, often low income, even when something as basic as water is at stake.
One project I’ve been working on for a while, with only middling degrees of success, is to get town centers to put in water pumping stations. This is useful not only for rural towns without a municipal water supply, but also for towns with a municipal supply at some distance, where it is possible to imagine water contamination that left local supplies uncontaminated, or the disruption of local water transmission. My rough estimate is that this includes about 1/3-1/2 of all the towns and cities in the US – they have water under the ground, but no way of getting at it, and no way of dealing with a major, extended power outage or widespread contamination of reservoirs or surface water.
Now many individuals and towns assume that in such a case, they will simply wait for the water trucks to arrive, or will melt snow or use surface water. But as we saw in New Orleans, the water trucks don’t always arrive quickly, dehydration is a serious problem, and without good filtration, surface water is not safe. Now there are plenty of scenarios where well pumping isn’t a perfect solution – when people are housebound and get get to the local sites, when the wells are also potentially contaminated, say by heavy flooding. But they are a measure of security on one of the most basic needs we have.
But the high cost of installation for towns and individuals means that many people simply choose to take their chances on the water front. Frankly, this worries me – I think that our overall water infrastructure is one of the most vulnerable spots to a breakdown – but that’s another post. What I got excited about is that Jim Juczak actually did something about this problem.
What he did was this – he built a manual deep well pump that can be made of off the shelf hardware parts, with minimal machining. Because he’s a middle-school shop teacher, he actually taught his 7th graders to make these, in an attempt to make sure that it was something that nearly everyone could put together. His estimate of the cost of parts is about $125, and handy folks may even have some of them lying around. He’s tested the well pump for three years, to assure himself that the PVC version holds up to regular use, and includes in his plans a model for a brass and steel version that should last a long, long time. He’s charging $20 for the plans, and will be offering kits – machined parts only, pvc or brass and steel. Even the most expensive version shouldn’t cost more than $500, as opposed to 1500-2000 bucks. I believe all of them can work around an existing well pump, but you’d want to double check that with Jim.
I find this tremendously exciting for a host of reasons. There’s really no excuse for towns and small cities not to put in municipal pumping stations at schools, community centers and parks in this scenario, using existing wells. The potential applications for the Global South are enormous – I can think of a number of anti-poverty groups that have been struggling to bring water access to many areas, and could potentially now put in more wells. Moreover, all of us who realize that our water infrastructure cannot be allowed to depend on something as uncertain as an always-there electric supply have choices that we did not.
You can see pictures of the pump here, at Jim’s website: http://www.woodhenge.org/2009/05/farming-writing-and-water-pumps-at.html. You can contact him about the pumps at his email address jsjuczak@gisco.net. He also has a really great book on scavenging – making use of things people have cast off or don’t know what to do with.
Meanwhile, I’m just plain excited – I’m ordering plans for myself!
Sharon
Sharon,
Re: hand water pumps, you might want to take a look at bison water pumps http://www.bisonpumps.com/ a beautiful device made right here in the great state of Maine. All stainless steel & brass fittings, exceptionally well designed and not much more to purchase than the one you just reported on. We installed one last fall, in our basement, and tied it in with our existing water system. If power goes out we head for the basement, turn a few bypass valves, pump a while and re-pressurize our household system again. This way we have the water right where we want it, just like before! Works like a charm!
Ron Poitras
Surry Maine
I’ve wondered about this, on and off, for years. At the end of my block is the old pumping station from when my small town was in the middle of nowhere. It has a house built over it, but you can see how to get water flowing, if only there was a pump. Women who lives there is not interested — frankly, I think if water went out, she’d get interested really fast. Wondering about ordering one on behalf of the community and see if when there is no water she’d be interested in having it installed….
Does that sound do able…
We made, about 20 years ago, a PVC wellbucket for our 6″ well; it fits down beside the pump cables. We made it from plans that were circulating around here (Maine) at the time, but I have since seen very similar plans on several websites, for $0. And we have less than $20 in parts on this one, albeit a while back. You can get a good wellbucket, metal, fits in a 4″ well for about $50 or less in old-fashioned hardwares or most any Amish hardware, most of which will ship anywhere. We also have a shallow well below the house which was put in for the gardens and barn and we piped that up here and have an old formerly-junked hand pump on it down cellar, for the cost of some elbow grease, piping left over from a local construction project, and new leathers (cut from a leather skirt I bought years ago at SA for $2, just so I’d have a bit of usable leather around. So it doesn’t have to be really high-dollar, just takes some planning and self-oomph. And unless water gets really bad, don’t really have to have any of that, as the deepwell runs from under the cap 24/7, has for the 14 years of it’s life, but that could change with any little ol’ shaker-quake……
Dear Sharon,
Thanks for all your morally courageous and intellectually honest efforts, even though approaching threats to human wellbeing and environmental health loom ominously before us. Imagine what would immediately occur if everyone followed your good example. In the face of such daunting global challenges as humanity confronts in our time, it is so easy to curse the darkness and, by so doing, choose NOT to light candles, as you are doing. Keep lighting candles.
Always,
Steve
We’ve got an Aermotor windmill; 10′ wheel, at 45′. It was an old abandoned mill, in good operating order.
Cost us $4,000 for the 120′ grouted well and mill, installed, in 1979 dollars. The cost is up, more than just the inflation.
But- the reliability is maybe as close to 100% as you can get. The well can be pumped by hand for small amounts of drinking water if necessary; and we have a “pump jack” which we used to hook up to our old Mainline walking tractor, to pump water for tree establishment in a drought, which included long weeks of no wind.
That well and mill are an example of “real wealth”.
Sharon,
Even a major municipal city’s water supply can fail if the power failure is extensive enough. Twice in the last 15 years we have almost had this happen in the Memphis area. Once because of an ice storm (Feb 1994) and once because of hurricane-force straight line winds (July 2003, which we refer to as Hurricaine Elvis, lol).
Thanks for the work you’re doing. You’ve given me much to think about and we’re making small, slow, and fairly steady changes in our family–which are generally the only ones that are lasting.
Anne in Memphis
Sharon,
I like everything you say, and don’t want to detract from it with my comment.
I don’t think too much is necessary for “extended power loss”, having been through some of them.
And when I bought rural property with a well and a creek two years ago, I bought a filter to use for the creek water if I ever had to rely on it. Outdoor/hiking stores sell them.
So, another idea is to locate your nearest river/creek water, buy a filter, and have it available for an extended power failure.
I realize that’s easier in upstate NY and Vermont than it might be in Arizona.
I like your idea on public water supplies.
Kate
Kate, I agree that you can use surface water with a good filter – the problem is that many camping filters don’t do a very good job with agricultural and industrial contaminants – they are very good for dealing with bacterial contamination, but not always good for dealing with day to day surface water issues. The two that I find adequate for real, heavy duty surface water use are Kataydin and British Berkefield. Since most people don’t have them, my concern with people drinking surface water is contamination – fresh surface water in the US is so heavily contaminated as to be a huge problem. But yes, if you have a surface water source, and adequate filtration, and it is *close* – that is, it is always worth remembering that you may not be able to get gas and carrying water half a mile is extremely good exercise
(bike tanks are a thought there).
Anne, that’s really interesting and useful to know – thanks!
Greenpa, I’m not personally handy enough, I don’t think to put up a windmill, but boy would I love one – I not only love the idea, but I actually think they are really cool in general. I’ve seen one going for 6K, and thought about it, but I don’t think I have the skill set – I’ve got to talk to my step-mom and bil, who might, and see if we could get a family work weekend together if we did it.
Ron and OFL, those also good and useful tools, although it is really important for people to check to see if they can actually get their buckets down past their well pumps – not all of them work.
Thanks, everyone!
Sharon
Sharon- yike! I never even considered doing that chore myself! I hired it done by an experienced person. Only cost an extra $800 or so, and totally worth it.
Yes, I built my own house/cabin and sheds- but the parameters are really different. Log cabin construction is pretty forgiving- the logs are usually around 10x stronger than they have to be, and if you’re a little off- no biggie.
But that windmill has to stand up straight, and stand up to your maximum storm winds; which I would guess run around 90-110 mph where you are. (That would be a downburst in a heavy thunderstorm.)
So the basic positioning and construction is critical; plus you have to crawl all over it- and while I was walking the ceiling beams fearlessly in the cabin- clambering on the steel skeleton of the windmill at 40-50 feet is something else. I’ve done it- a little; for yearly maintenance- but boy, I wouldn’t want to mess with it for construction.
We just had ours overhauled- and found a professional, who’d apprenticed with a professional- and he was- really professional. And a Friend; so the charges were extremely reasonable. And our windmill is now set to run another 30-50 years, with essentially no maintenance.
I’d go pro. And- you might in fact find someone willing to do some barter for the service. Like coming to intern with you for a summer?
I do love our Aermotor. When he climbed up, and looked in the gear box, my professional hollered down to me “Well; she was built in August, 1932.” This was 2007. Most of the bits he replaced were original. A couple pivot bushings and the tail pin.
Oh, and water filters. Just for extreme need purposes; keep this in mind- my father, who taught Sanitary Engineering (as part of Civil) said to me several times- “10 feet of sand will filter out ANYTHING.”
With a few caveats, that’s really true; even down to viruses and chemicals.
One of the caveats- you want to use SHARP sand for filters; not round sand- the difference is big and important. For one thing, sharp sand is much more effective as a chemical catalyst- it will actually break chemical compounds, via what we now know is basically nano-catalysis. And the slower the water moves through the sand, the better; so using a big diameter pipe to hold it is good. And don’t clog it with dirty water; what goes into your final sand filter needs to be pretty clean to begin with.
Awkward, not portable- but extremely effective, and probably very cheap.
Oh, and.
Sharon- I DID put up my own small windgenerator; even designing the tower myself. Quite a lot simpler, really; and a much smaller wind resistance.
Greenpa,
Where do you get sharp sand? How do you identify it?
Also, how would you create a 10 foot sand filter?
KC – as someone who sells sand!
Sharp sand is also “masons sand”; round sand in your mortar can make your building crumble. I find recently, though, that the kids selling stuff at Home Depot have no idea what I’m talking about when I ask for either masons or sharp. But any good mason will definitely know.
How? Any way you can; literally. Dig a 10′ deep hole, line it with lumber, fill it with sand- put water in on one end, and take it out the other. Build a 10′ tall water tank- make it 3x stronger than you think it has to be- ditto. Use 10′ of 4″ or bigger pipe. Any way that works.
Complete details are complex- and beyond my scope here. You can find the info in a bunch of places- old military construction manuals are great.
hm; that should be ASK someone who sells sand.
Greenpa- I’d heard from a friend building water filters in Haiti that plain sand filters aren’t good enough; you need to have an active layer of bacteria (the schmutzdecke) to really be safe. http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/ssf/en/index.html
Emily- it sure wouldn’t hurt; to some extent, the digestive bacteria will develop as the filter is used and ages. Also- I think true sharp sand may be very hard to come by in Haiti; most sand there is going to be beach sand, which is far from sharp. Beach sand may also be mostly calcium carbonate; old coral and shells beat into dust- and that’s not nearly as useful as silica based sands. Color can be a guide there- the whiter the sand, the more suspect; darker sands may be basalt based; better.
Good addition there- and points out, as I said; full details are complex, but you can dig it out.
In looking at the WHO information- it’s great on principles and very thorough; but I eventually got to “the minimum size is usually estimated at 100 square meters” – of surface. LOL!
Just wanted to reassure you, smaller, household sized sand filters can be made, and can be effective. Follow the principles.