What Would You Recommend as an Alternative to this System to Pressurize House's Plumbing?

[AgroVenturesPeru]

I'm getting tired of this setup:

What is this Setup Called?

We had someone set this up in Peru, and it seems to be acting up. This is the setup to pump water from our rainwater storage tank to the plumbing of the house everytime we open a tap. I don't know what it's called in English, and I'm not sure in Spanish either. The blue pump is called a bomba...

diysolarforum.com

I went to change the filter for our rainwater tank yesterday and by swapping the old filter for the new one, we had to re calibrate the entire pressure switch. The simple act of swapping out a filter turned into an entire afternoon wasted. The pressure switch is on its way out, and the pressure gauge is half full of water. The pressure switch pretty much decides the extent to which it can be modified. Would be better perhaps to have something digital where you could just type in the numbers that you want as far as psi. This analog design with metal springs has already started to rust. Yesterday we had a nice range of 10-32psi, and now that I changed the filter for the rainwater tank, the pressure switch has decided it's only going to do about a 20-32psi range. No amount of fiddling with a wrench can get the range any wider than that. Trying small adjustments to get it any higher, makes it so the pump never shuts off. The pump is basically physically incapable of getting pressure above 32-34psi. The writing is on the wall. If we don't get proactive and do something now, at some point we will be without plumbing. We're also tired of having to get out the bike pump every 6 months to purge the pressure tank.

Are there other systems that are less finnicky? It was suggested before to get a bigger pressure tank, which is a fine suggestion. However, I'm wondering if there might be a completely different design based on different components?

How about some sort of all-in-one component that combines the pump, switch, gauge and tank? Or maybe that's not recommended, because you can't swap out individual components when something goes wrong?

 

[l00semarble]

Variable speed pump with controller would do it. Still may use a small expansion tank.

Or give Peru may have some hills? pump water to a tank high enough to give you correct household pressure by gravity. Your tank would need to be about 100ft above highest fixture in house.

 

[yodamota]

Or give Peru may have some hills? pump water to a tank high enough to give you correct household pressure by gravity. Your tank would need to be about 100ft above highest fixture in house.

We use as described above. Been working for 7 years with no problems. We do drain the line every now and than. And we use a berkley water filter for the drinking water. Tank probably has 50' of head. Line to the house is 2 inch. Tank is 2000gallons. We pump it every few weeks or when we do a lot of laundry. Waters comes from a shallow well.

We do the same for our garden watering as well. Only it pumps from solar direct. and the water comes from our pond.

 

[Shimmy]

There are self-contained pump packages in Asia; here are examples from Mitsubishi: https://mitsubishi-kyw.co.th/Product/For-Home/Water-Pump.aspx?lang=EN

They still fail, but it is at least easier to do a dumb swap to a new unit. (They can be repaired.)

 

[Nobodybusiness]

I'm getting tired of this setup:

What is this Setup Called?

We had someone set this up in Peru, and it seems to be acting up. This is the setup to pump water from our rainwater storage tank to the plumbing of the house everytime we open a tap. I don't know what it's called in English, and I'm not sure in Spanish either. The blue pump is called a bomba...

diysolarforum.com

I went to change the filter for our rainwater tank yesterday and by swapping the old filter for the new one, we had to re calibrate the entire pressure switch. The simple act of swapping out a filter turned into an entire afternoon wasted. The pressure switch is on its way out, and the pressure gauge is half full of water. The pressure switch pretty much decides the extent to which it can be modified. Would be better perhaps to have something digital where you could just type in the numbers that you want as far as psi. This analog design with metal springs has already started to rust. Yesterday we had a nice range of 10-32psi, and now that I changed the filter for the rainwater tank, the pressure switch has decided it's only going to do about a 20-32psi range. No amount of fiddling with a wrench can get the range any wider than that. Trying small adjustments to get it any higher, makes it so the pump never shuts off. The pump is basically physically incapable of getting pressure above 32-34psi. The writing is on the wall. If we don't get proactive and do something now, at some point we will be without plumbing. We're also tired of having to get out the bike pump every 6 months to purge the pressure tank.

Are there other systems that are less finnicky? It was suggested before to get a bigger pressure tank, which is a fine suggestion. However, I'm wondering if there might be a completely different design based on different components?

How about some sort of all-in-one component that combines the pump, switch, gauge and tank? Or maybe that's not recommended, because you can't swap out individual components when something goes wrong?

Grundfos SQE constant pressure pump.

Or

Dankoff DC booster pumps.

 

[Larry12]

Get one of these 12 volt Shurflo model 2088 for solar/battery:
https://a.co/d/dgdhiBd

Or this 115 volt Shurflo model 2088-594-154

https://a.co/d/8yZ3APw

Shurflo 2088 will turn on when water line pressure drops below 35 psi and will turn off when water pressure reaches 45 psi. It will run for many years and even running dry occasionally won't hurt it. They are really for indoors RV use so you need to keep them covered from the elements. I use mine with a 50 litre hidropneumátic pressure tank.
These pumps produce 3.5 gallons a minute and can lift water about 30 meters.

 

[AgroVenturesPeru]

There are self-contained pump packages in Asia; here are examples from Mitsubishi: https://mitsubishi-kyw.co.th/Product/For-Home/Water-Pump.aspx?lang=EN

They still fail, but it is at least easier to do a dumb swap to a new unit. (They can be repaired.)

- The pump head is made of grass and not meat.

WTF? https://mitsubishi-kyw.co.th/Product/For-Home/Water-Pump/Automatic/769.aspx?NodeID=769&ProductType=5

 

[dopeassjackson]

Pictures of what you currently have now may help. Is it one of those cheap pressure switches with the screw on the pump? Yes those suck even new.

I'm sure someone sells a DC pressure switch. If not an AC normal house one is prety cheap and prob built for way higher amps than a DC pump if that's what your useing. Without more Info it's hard to awnser a open ended question like that.

I now see the post about your pump. That's a standard pressure switch. Change it, as you shouldnt have to adjust it to begin with. They collect junk behind the diaphram or in the inlet tube and dont work properly. If you can get that switch vertical it may help keep junk out of the diaphram section. I found mine at 80psi one day. Also a new gauge.

 

[AgroVenturesPeru]

I don't know whether the inlet tube or diaphragm are having issues. I'm not sure I know what you're referring to with those terms, either. Isn't the diaphragm inside the air tank? That tank hasn't been much of a problem. And I think the pressure switch is OK. From what I can tell, the pump is actually the main problem. I can adjust the pressure switch to give it a higher psi range just fine, but it seems no matter what, the pump won't produce more than 32 or 34 psi according to the presssure gauge.

When the pressure drops to the cut-in level, the switch clicks, the pump turns on, and pressure begins to build just fine until it gets to around 30psi where it starts to seem like it is fighting to get the pressure any higher. I've used a wrench to turn the main nut on the pressure switch to where it should translate to a cut out value of 40psi or higher. The result is that the pump will just keep running constantly and never get above 34psi. It just stays on forever until you either turn it off at the circuit breaker or adjust the pressure switch back down. So, it appears the pump is physically incapable of producing more than 34psi. I know we used to have the thing adjusted up to about 40-45psi in the past, which seemed a little too strong. The amount of piping and total distance is very short compared to most situations you might encounter, so having less pressure than this doesn't make a difference. Right now for example, the cut out is at this 32-34psi, and when we open the faucet completely, the kitchen sink shoots out a lot harder than what we really want/need.

By the way, I've measured the shraeder valve on top of the tank with a tire pressure gauge many times, and it corresponds with what the pressure gauge states, so the pressure gauge is still accurate. I can't think of what else it would be other than the pump itself.

Either way, when this thing dies, I'll probably be looking for a different setup. Those all-in-one type things are tempting.

The house runs on 220V. The current pump is AC driven.

Pictures of what you currently have now may help. Is it one of those cheap pressure switches with the screw on the pump? Yes those suck even new.

I'm sure someone sells a DC pressure switch. If not an AC normal house one is prety cheap and prob built for way higher amps than a DC pump if that's what your useing. Without more Info it's hard to awnser a open ended question like that.

I now see the post about your pump. That's a standard pressure switch. Change it, as you shouldnt have to adjust it to begin with. They collect junk behind the diaphram or in the inlet tube and dont work properly. If you can get that switch vertical it may help keep junk out of the diaphram section. I found mine at 80psi one day. Also a new gauge.

 

[65NW]

I have a grundfos Scala 2 which has some issues with leaking thought the glass filled nylon case.
Just installed a DAB mini 3 (or esybox3) and it is rad. Flow sensing, reports, water usage and power consumption on the screen.

For a small farm system I also spun up a vfd on a 220v jet pump with pressure feedback (post filters), but that's probably more work than it was worth.

The other nice thing with the dab pumps is some of them can be linked with Bluetooth to work together as one large pump.

 

[onrbikes]

This is my first comment so be nice.

I'm in West Australia and have been watching this forum with interest.

We're offgrid for over 20 years.
Our water situation is very basic and has never failed us.

For small solar setups pressure pumps use too much power.

We have a large holding tank (20000l) where all our roof water goes. Here is a small sureflo 12v pump connected to an old car battery and a couple of small panels.

Water is pumped via a 1.5" polypipe to a header tank. 100m away and a head of 20m.
Small pumps need a large pipe diameter and like to push water. Not suck.

From the header tank to the house via a 1.5" polypipe 15m with about a 5m drop. I have a 4000l tank on top of a 5m stand..

Agroventures. I've tried to contact you via your website. Get back to me. USA is too expensive for gear. Try Australia.
I'm coming to Peru in July. Would like to b help.