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Grundfos SQ pumps should be stickied to the top of this catagory.

Hello, a little late to the party here but this thread seems to be just what I was looking for. I'm looking at the 3 SQF-3 as a replacement for my conventional Gould but not 100% sure this is the right choice. Would love to hear some informed opinions.

My drilled well is 580 feet. Not sure of the static level, what's the best way to measure that? I have an 8K inverter with a 430 amp-hour battery bank. Looking to reduce my well pump's load so it doesn't draw down the battery bank too quickly.

No special water demands at house so I was thinking 2gpm would be fine (well yield is only 2 anyway).

Based on how deep my well is I figured the 3 SQF-3 was the right choice. Is that correct?

Figured I could just continue using the existing dedicated 240VAC/15A circuit for the Grundfos. Sound logical?

Please educate me...I'm all ears. Thank you.

One thing I would say is try to get a pump that outputs less than your well refresh rate. Pumping beyond the refresh rate creates negative pressure that tends to pull in more sediment and clog your well screen. I have a well that puts out about 2.5 GPM and so I have a pump that gives me a little less than 2 GPM. The level in the well never drops so I know I am not outstripping capacity. Of course at those flow rates you need a tank, I have a 2500 gallon so the slow fill rate is not a problem.
 
Speaking from experience I can say that in "general terms" the energy (KWH's) to pump a given amount of water will pretty much be the same. I'm sure the SQ if more efficient but not enough to warrant swapping out until the Gould fails. The main advantage of the SQ pump would be how much easier it is for your inverter to start but it sounds like you already able to run your Gould pump, right? IMHO, your money would be better spend on adding solar panels and/or expanding your battery bank.
Hmmm....so the load on my battery bank is going to be the same as my conventional Gould pump? You're saying the only difference is the soft start? Didn't realize that, I thought these pumps were more efficient. I'll go pack and check specs again.
 
LOL... I have an SQ5, 260 deep, pushes to 50 Gal Pressure tank then another 75' to house.
Starting watts is 550W, stages up to 1100W by the time it reaches 52PSI cutoff
This is 120VAC as well, NOT 240VAC.

Softstart is certainly best for an inverter system and that applies to not only Water Pumps and quite a few electric motors can be retrofit with SoftStart modules.
 
I am in Florida and have a shallow well, we have an old fashioned hand pump to use in emergencies and it only takes a few pumps to draw water. The pump is 120v and is above ground. Can anyone suggest a soft start, energy efficient above ground shallow well pump motor?
 
Grundfos SQ series ac pumps are the only pumps I've ever run across that run perfectly on just about ANY inverter over 1000w. if planning on running a well pump offgrid they are the only system I've ever seen that JUST WORKS. (for domestic use, irrigation is a different animal) Everything else requires overly complicated setups that often pump every gallon of water.

I think they should be a sticky in this catagory because every time I've recommended one to someone it was as a REPLACEMENT for the well pump they had already bought... that didn't work offgrid.

sq model numbers look like this 10SQ05-160 10=gallons per minute 05=1/2hp-160=rated head. their 1/2hp pumps come in 120 and 240 their larger pumps only in 240.

to determine what pump to buy, first decide how many gpm you want/need. I've personally never had a need for over 10gpm even in a 4 bath house. grundfos goes over 30 on the sq line. Next number you'll need is your static water level in the well. to determine rated head pressure needed add the depth to static water level in your well plus your desired water pressure. standard well pressure switches are 20/40 30/50 and 40/60 so if you had a well with a 70 foot static level and wanted 60psi @ your faucet your minimum head pressure would be 130. I like to add about 30 or more to this number as a margin of error. in this senario the above listed model would work fine. if the well was deeper you would need a higher head rated pump.

5gpm models
5 SQ15-450 (1)
5 SQ10-410 (1)
5 SQ10-360 (1)
5 SQ07-320 (1)
5 SQ07-270 (1)
5 SQ07-230 (1)
5 SQ05-90 (1)
5 SQ05-180 (1)
5 SQ05-140 (1)

10 gpm models

10 SQ15-330 (1)
10 SQ10-290 (1)
10 SQ07-240 (1)
10 SQ07-200 (1)
10 SQ05-160 (1)
10 SQ05-110 (1)

15gpm models
15 SQ15-290 (1)
15 SQ10-250 (1)
15 SQ10-220 (1)
15 SQ07-180 (1)
15 SQ07-150 (1)
15 SQ05-70 (1)
15 SQ05-110 (1)

I have no affiliation with grundfos just wish someone had mentioned them to me when I was staring out offgrid
Best pumps ever made in my opinion.
Have one in my well.
 
Hey there, hoping someone smart could help me with this. We're having a well installed and I'd like to use one of those Grundfos pumps. We live in the middle of nowhere so a recommendation on a good seller would be cool, we're Nevada, USA.

If I'm reading this right, for the 5SQ15-450 it's 2.5 HP, 2.5KW, 240v AC, producing 4.4 GPM at 450 feet of water depth. But the power curves show it going substantially deeper than that, at 750' going to about 2GPM.


I'll have a deep well, guessing ~500 feet water depth and I really would be fine with ~1GPM flow rate as it's filling a large water tower. If there's another model anyone can suggest with that sort of profile I'd love to know it.
 
Hey there, hoping someone smart could help me with this. We're having a well installed and I'd like to use one of those Grundfos pumps. We live in the middle of nowhere so a recommendation on a good seller would be cool, we're Nevada, USA.

If I'm reading this right, for the 5SQ15-450 it's 2.5 HP, 2.5KW, 240v AC, producing 4.4 GPM at 450 feet of water depth. But the power curves show it going substantially deeper than that, at 750' going to about 2GPM.


I'll have a deep well, guessing ~500 feet water depth and I really would be fine with ~1GPM flow rate as it's filling a large water tower. If there's another model anyone can suggest with that sort of profile I'd love to know it.
That pump does appear to work but it's pretty power hungry. What about an SQ Flex? The 3 SQF-3 looks like it will do almost 3 GPM at 500' and needs just 700 watts to do it if I'm reading the pump curve correctly. Since you're going into a water tower the simplicity of a solar direct system might have some appeal to you. The SQ Flex pumps are something else if you haven't studied them. The can run off of AC or DC. https://www.solar-electric.com/lib/wind-sun/3_SQF-3_Curve_Data.pdf
 

5 SQ10-410 should also work fine. It's a slightly smaller draw model.

 
As far as a source for pumps, you might try these guys. http://www.solarhome.org/acwaterpumps.aspx been a few years since I dealt with them and they don't LIST the model you need on their website, but their prices are crazy good. ( add to cart to see price) like I said, they don't LIST a good model for your purposes, but who knows maybe they can order one.
 
That pump does appear to work but it's pretty power hungry. What about an SQ Flex? The 3 SQF-3 looks like it will do almost 3 GPM at 500' and needs just 700 watts to do it if I'm reading the pump curve correctly. Since you're going into a water tower the simplicity of a solar direct system might have some appeal to you. The SQ Flex pumps are something else if you haven't studied them. The can run off of AC or DC. https://www.solar-electric.com/lib/wind-sun/3_SQF-3_Curve_Data.pdf
Hey thanks, that does seem like a lot less power consumption, nearly 1/3 in fact. A few more bucks but probably worth it to me. Thank you!
 
Hey thanks, that does seem like a lot less power consumption, nearly 1/3 in fact. A few more bucks but probably worth it to me. Thank you!
Looking at the spec sheets for this one on the grundfos web site it calls for 530 ft of 1awg wires that will buy a lot of panels and batteries
 
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Isn't that because of the possibility of running low voltage? At 340v DC or 240v AC there's no reason to run big wires like that.

Edit: yep, in the documentation it says pretty clearly to use the right size wires for the power you'll be providing.
I might be missing something and by "might' I mean probably. I look at it this way, assuming a peak draw of 800 watts at it's maximum head. I would use four ~250 watt 60 cell modules in series to make sure I had plenty of watts for more hours per day.

That works out to a Vmp of ~152v. Watts/Volts=Amps. When I plug 5.2 amps and 500' into my voltage drop calculator it spits out 10awg with a voltage drop of less than 4%.
 
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Hmmmmm , I have a SQF solar pump it uses 700watts of power @120v run off my inverter with a 10/2 with ground pump cable on sch 120 pump drop tube I get 5/6 gallons a minute into my tank .
I wanted to run off solar but it’s seams like a wast of power just having the array sitting all day and not giving power .
My pump is plunged into my inverter on a 20 amp breaker I use a 25$ mechanical timer I can set for up to a hour .
My tank is 250 gallons and a half hour of pumping will give me 150/ 180 gallons depending on how deep the water is.
this pump will run at any voltage .
 
I wanted to run off solar but it’s seams like a wast of power just having the array sitting all day and not giving power .

I think that's the same thing for me. While it's "simpler" to have solar, the vast majority of the time I'd be having a couple thousand dollars in panels just sitting there shading the dirt instead of powering something else, heating water, charging batteries, etc.
 
Really the SQF is a great pump and there is nothing easier then running it off a regular outlet with a plug .
The water pumps out of the ground thru the filter and around the room into the 250 gallon tank
we use about 50 gallons a day if the girls are with me so my tank gets low every every other 3 day weekend
I can pump for 30 min and get 6 gallons a minute I set the 20 dollar timer for 30 mini and get 180g in the tank .
If your well is not to deep you can pump water with 2 300watt panels and there cu200 controller .
I think the pump would last longer just pumping a couple 100 gallons at a time rather then pumping on and off all day with the sun.
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I looked at the SQ Flex pumps about 12 years ago. Some neighbors and the local well driller confirmed lots of failures around 3-4 years.
(Just out of warranty, then.) I don't know if that's from our heavily mineralized water (quite corrosive in some areas, also) and the scroll type pump with it's tight tolerances, or what. I went with a Franklin 1/2hp, 230VAC pump which I run off my own design inverter, which starts it easily, draws 1350W running. I pump to a 2000 gallon storage tank on a hill for gravity feed simplicity. My water here has a TDS of 100, PH 7.1, no iron or manganese or sulfates, but it will still eat galvanized steel fittings.

I'd love to hear about long term reliability of the SQ Flex from long term users.
 
I went with a Franklin 1/2hp, 230VAC pump which I run off my own design inverter, which starts it easily, draws 1350W running. I pump to a 2000 gallon storage tank on a hill for gravity feed simplicity.
I always go to storage in favor of increasing pump size. I'd rather have the pump running longer a moving a little less capacity- instead of bursting a ton and then doing nothing.

Lot's of startups and stops are killing pumps, not running them
 
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