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Dedicated Well Pump solar system

Ryanmorgan

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May 31, 2020
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I am looking into moving to property off grid and figured running water may or may not happen. So if I had a well, I was thinking of installing a dedicated solar system with enough back up battery that I wouldn’t have to worry about my water usage as much.
Anyone off grid with a well that could give advice on this?

I found average Well pump watts: 700 W
With pressure tank installed, pump may run for 45 sec - 1.5 min, but that all depends on how long you leave water on of course. But never having lived on Well, hard to guess how much the watt usage is, and not finding much with google search.
 
It is really going to come down to how deep your water is. Deeper the water the more energy necessary. That being said just to pressurize surface water is really energy inexpensive. I have water stored at the same level as my house and pump that with an on demand water pump into pressure tanks. I really do not even noticed the power it uses basically It is so little i do not account for it in my energy budget. I only use water for household purposes no irrigation though.

If you know how deep your supply is im sure the energy needed could be estimated fairly close.
 
I do not have experience with well pumps, but if you have the ability to pump into a tank, you may want to investigate the Grundfos solar well pumps. I have only looked at the specs but they are interesting in their simplicity. All you need is the solar panel(s), the pump and a small controller. The issue is that they only pump when the sun is shining.... thus the need for a tank. You store water in a tank rather than store electricity in a battery.

https://us.grundfos.com/products/find-product/sqflex.html
 
I do not have experience with well pumps, but if you have the ability to pump into a tank, you may want to investigate the Grundfos solar well pumps. I have only looked at the specs but they are interesting in their simplicity. All you need is the solar panel(s), the pump and a small controller. The issue is that they only pump when the sun is shining.... thus the need for a tank. You store water in a tank rather than store electricity in a battery.

https://us.grundfos.com/products/find-product/sqflex.html
That’s actually a good idea. Probably a lot cheaper to buy a storage tank and set it up to pump when sunshine is available, rather than invest in more batteries.
 
It is really going to come down to how deep your water is. Deeper the water the more energy necessary. That being said just to pressurize surface water is really energy inexpensive. I have water stored at the same level as my house and pump that with an on demand water pump into pressure tanks. I really do not even noticed the power it uses basically It is so little i do not account for it in my energy budget. I only use water for household purposes no irrigation though.

If you know how deep your supply is im sure the energy needed could be estimated fairly close.
Well don’t know how deep the well is gonna be yet, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed it’s not super deep and look into a storage tank as well. Thanks
 
This MAY be an answer - for some anyways: https://www.mppsolar.com/v3/sp-series-3-phase/

I am OFF Grid, my well is 260' (80m) deep with 6" Casing & Bore hole (Cable drilled for higher water flow).
NOTE Bore drilling does not fracture the rock so you typically end up 25% deeper. Cable Pounding Driller fractures the rock as it drills and provides better water flow BUT for the first 6-9 months you get more sediment into the new well. My cost to have well drilled was $35 per foot + the Casing (10' into rock, sealed and 2 feet above grade cost $10 per foot) that was in 2015 - Ontario Canada.
The water is pulled up to a 50 Gallon (190L) Pressure Tank and then 75' to house using 3/4" PEX.
The Pump is a GrundFos SQ-5 120VAC Soft Start pump set to 48PSI. The pump starts at 500W and ramps to 1100W when reaching Max Pressure.
Nice & Easy in the Inverter because there is no surges.
Never ever notice the water pressure drop and no water surge when the pump starts.
Grundfos is NOT Cheap but they are one of the best Pumps available on the market and there is no shortcuts or cheap parts in these.

REF:
* not the easiest site to locate info though.
 
I am looking into moving to property off grid and figured running water may or may not happen.
Anyone off grid with a well that could give advice on this?
I found average Well pump watts: 700 W
I don't think there is such a thing as an average well pump. That's sort of like saying the average engine size of cars is 1500cc.
Pumps come in innumerable sizes and shapes to accomidate different applications. They can be basicly divided up into above ground, and submersible pumps, which can be divided into DC or AC, and those divided into 120V or 240V.

I my own case, I have a 1hp 240VAC submersible pump (380 feet down) that I've been running successfully for years now, solely off of solar. I've discovered that my inverter produces higher quality power than my generator did, and I can get >gallons per hour from the solar system than I did the gasoline powered genset.

BTW, if you buy a property with a well already installed, you really need to do your homework first about supplying power to it. Electrical motors starved for power die very quickly, so you don't want to just slap random components together and try to see if it works. Replacing a dead wellpump can be a very expensive undertaking. Start with determining what the starting and running amps are to power the unit, then design a system to meet those needs. My rule of thumb is to determine what your single largest load is (maybe the well pump), then install 2X the number of watts of panels for what that load is. So, if the wellpump needs 1500W of power to run, install 3000W worth of panels.
 
You might look into jetting a well, if you're reasonably shallow. That's how I did mine. I got to 65' but it was not easy. No rock for me either. That will stop you cold. Grundfos is the absolute best pump out there, hands down. You get what you pay for.
 
My well in eastern Washington was 780' deep... powered by an old steel windmill to water the cows and irrigate the field...
When dad filled the lower 350 acre section, we needed more flow...
Hired a well company to test flow rate and supply levels...
Hooked 400Hp pump to it, dropped the level 1"...
That glacier melt mountain water supply is SOLID!
 
It is really going to come down to how deep your water is. Deeper the water the more energy necessary. That being said just to pressurize surface water is really energy inexpensive. I have water stored at the same level as my house and pump that with an on demand water pump into pressure tanks. I really do not even noticed the power it uses basically It is so little i do not account for it in my energy budget. I only use water for household purposes no irrigation though.

If you know how deep your supply is im sure the energy needed could be estimated fairly close.
Craig, would you be willing to share more particulars about your pumping system?
I am about to build a pumphouse and a pretty elaborate rain harvesting system and I'm still fairly early in my research. I do know I will be collecting at each structure's immediate roof and gravity feeding from the several locations to a single pumphouse. Then filtering it and pumping it back to 5he respective needed locations.
Any experience and insight would be helpful.
 
Our system uses a grundfos sq pump. They also make an sq-flex to run on 24v dc. My pump (see youtube for starting amps grundfos well pump) uses 7.4a to start and run off a 12v system. I started the pump with a 600w pure sine. My previous pump needed a nuclear power plant to start. We pump water from our 1200g cistern into an 80g pressure tank set to 30-50psi. Takes 3 mins and pump runs 10g per min.
 
I have a 50k liter cistern underground. I would like to run a Grundfos SQE pump. Where do you buy these in the US? I'm hoping to do the small model that runs off 120 VAC.
 
I can not help you with your energy need, but I can caution you about the dangers of storing water in a tank exposed to sunlight and air.
Drinking water exposed to sunlight is dangerous to health ...
.
 
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