Any Borehole Pump Experience on the Forum?

[awemawson]

I have discovered a borehole on the farm - we've had a mystery jammed 24" circular manhole cover that we've never been able to explain, but I've tracked it down to the borehole described here:

http://scans.bgs.ac.uk/sobi_scans/boreholes/651959/images/12563414.html

Being unable to open the cover I lifted the entire 'upper works' a bit to peek in and was able to put a fiberglass cable draw rod down about 25 metres, so I'm sure it IS the bore hole!

Now that water would be useful so I am going to break out the flaunching round the surround and remove / replace the man hole cover.

But that still leaves the need for a bore hole pump. There are loads on eBay - lots of Chinese ones and some Czechoslovak ones. Are they any good, am I wasting my money, any personal experiences that you care to share?

 

[Ruffian]

Go decent.

We usually use lowara or pedrosa pumps/motors and controllers.

Are you just planning a float system, pressure vessel or dirty water system or running it as a whole water supply??

 

[Seadog]

@brewdexta

 

[Welderpaul]

Helped a pal out a while ago when he found one under a perpetual wet patch.

Two things to suggest. Hire or buy a cheapy submersible pump from machine mart just to get an idea on how much water you can draw from the borehole and at what level the water will naturally sit (Water table). Also get the water tested. Worth doing before spending any money on a decent pump.

He found out the inflow to the borehole was too low to make it worthwhile extracting, and that it was full of nasties that were leaching out of the ground.

Snowcat i believe is clued up on this.

 

[Pete.]

I don't suppose you want to hear about the number of those I've seen dumped about site over the years? Usually 3 phase pumps about 3-4" diameter and 18-24" long. If there's major de-watering work going on they don't mess around with them just yank them out and swap them over before the site floods. The 'old' ones invariably get trashed and end up in the skip.

 

[3000alloy]

Definitely get the water tested. There could be high levels of iron, manganese, hydro carbons etc etc. If the water is used for irrigation then these may not be as critical. But if it's being consumed by animals or humans then this will have to be done first to determine if the well is a good source.

Ram pump?

 

[Seadog]

It's for none of the above.

 

[Fraserb]

Would definetely agree with testing the flow and quality of the water first.

We have 3 boreholes, the last one took 4 attempts before we got a big enough flow to be worth while.

 

[thinfourth]

Okay

Before you can select the pump first you must know what you want todo with the water

How much per hour as that will let you size the pump for flow capacity

How much per day as you might exceed what the borehole can produce

Where to as it might be a mile up a massive hill which increases the pump size

What pressure when you get it there as this infulences the pump size

 

[awemawson]

OK the full story:

I am resurrecting my 100 KVA induction furnace that has been in storage for the last 13 years. The electronic driver and the 'furnace bodes' along with their drive cables are water cooled. I was using an 11 KVA input 39 KVA cooling effect water chiller but it has not survived storage and is a write off. I hit on the idea of using a plate heat exchanger, primary furnace water, secondary tap water. But a tap at 15 litres per minute doesn't flow fast enough for the job, I need 3 times that amount.

The bore hole in the past (bottom of page 4 of the document in that link I posted) has supplied 150,000 gallons per day so easily adequate especially as my usage will be VERY intermittent - probably only a few hours a month drawing 45-60 litres / minute.

The bore hole ceased public supply due to high iron content so no doubt things will get iron deposits, but only the pump and heat exchanger not the furnace bits as it will have a sealed water circulation system.

The FULL FULL story is here :

https://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,13100.0.html

 

[brewdexta]

We have a bore hole with lots of iron in the water. We used an aeration vessel then a filter to remove it. The aeration vessel uses a venturi on ingress to inject air into the water. The iron in solution then oxidises and falls out of solution so the filter can remove it. The filter is back washed nightly into our cess pit.

From memory our bore hole pump is a grundfos. I can find out which model if you need it.

Cheers
andy

 

[voipio]

There's a pumping station shown nearby. Is that the one that is no longer used?

 

[awemawson]

There's a pumping station shown nearby. Is that the one that is no longer used?

The farm belonged to Eastbourne Water Works for many years - they had several bore holes a bit further 'up the valley' - South East Water still have a pumping station next door but no longer draw any water locally, their facility is just for pumping water about

 

[awemawson]

I don't suppose you want to hear about the number of those I've seen dumped about site over the years? Usually 3 phase pumps about 3-4" diameter and 18-24" long. If there's major de-watering work going on they don't mess around with them just yank them out and swap them over before the site floods. The 'old' ones invariably get trashed and end up in the skip.

Pete if you get the opportunity one one or two of those in the future then yes please I can give them a good home

 

[frank horton]

had to replace a bore hole pump when I lived in France....60m deep......in the end we bought a pump from Poland or Checko and it was well made ST/St of course...
came with 50m of cable and a float sw.......abso perfek and it turned up in 4 days from order......it was around a fith of the price from FR.

would I buy again ...most def.....

 

[Pete.]

Pete if you get the opportunity one one or two of those in the future then yes please I can give them a good home

They tend to be very much like London buses (and on a Sunday service at that) but yes for sure if I bump into any de-watering guys I'll make the appropriate enquiries

 

[trogboy]

Is it definitely Well B shown on the plan? Page 3 of the borehole records note that as being infilled. It should be clear enough as it is recorded as being 6’9” wide from 5’ below the surface.

Did you see the water surface?

 

[KemppiFrog]

Grundfos, for electric, used to be the make of choice when I was around them, followed by Italian.
Standard system also has two sensors , one a bit above the pump and the other further up, to cut it off if the water gets too low and restart when it has risen again.
On our farm in the Algarve, first we had a 'bucket pump' Big wheel with a long chain with semi-circular buckets attached. Well was 100ft deep and 10ft across. When the water table dropped below the existing well, we drilled it 25mts deeper and fitted a shaft drive pump with a two pot Lister up top. Output was 75 cu mtrs/hr. Starting was def a two Wheatabix effort, as the Lister was hand cranked and one had to turn the whole 50mt drive shaft and pump.. I went down once to check the level. It was only a bit below the bottom of the original well and when the pump started, dropped by about 30cm. (also found what had happened to one of the cats..)
The deepest I came across was 200mts down, not sure what HP the pump was there. Domestic ones were 2/3hp, usually three phase. Most houses out of town had 3ph.
I hauled a big one at the estate I handled for a German shipping co. Pump was about 5ft tall and around 15hp and down only 30mts. Since the water was slightly saline ( they had around 500mts of clifftop frontage and the pump was only 100mtrs back.) and they didn't like chemicals in the pool, I rigged it to fill the pool with a 10cm feed pipe.. As soon as there was any sign of alge, we dumped the water and refilled it, only took about 4hrs and it was a big pool.

 

[awemawson]

@trogboy I cannot be sure, that series of records is very confusing. I lifted the big concrete lump just enough to peek under. It’s full of water to within 6 inches of the surface. As I poked the fiberglass rod in you could feel something under the surface that presumably is the pipe lining. The rod went down it at least 60 foot.

if I put the 8 figure map reference quoted in part of the report, google show a spot about 15 yards from the man hole so I reckon that they are the same

 

[KemppiFrog]

To ad: The big pumps were usually hung off the threaded iron pipes,with a steel cable as security, smaller ones used polyprop pipe and a nylon rope to take the weight.
Common here, is a pressure vessel of about 100lts and cut off switch, like your air compresser. But I prefer a tank with seperate pressure pump, as it doesn't load up the b/h pump so much and cycles far less often.