Building a new house soon. I’ve often been annoyed by the long power outages I get in my current house, which shut off my well pump, leaving me in the same situation as if I had been on city water and that failed.
So, in the interest of self-sufficiency, I wonder: Is it possible to install an old-fashioned hand-pump alongside the electric well pump in case of power failure/pump failure? I realize that the easiest way to ensure continuous operation during a power outage would be to install a battery backup (possibly with a small PV setup) to run the electric pump. But humor me. Is it possible to piggy-back a manual pump onto the same well being regularly accessed by the electric one? Or does the electric pump’s setup make it impossible?
[QUOTE=toadspittle]
Building a new house soon. I’ve often been annoyed by the long power outages I get in my current house, which shut off my well pump, leaving me in the same situation as if I had been on city water and that failed.
So, in the interest of self-sufficiency, I wonder: Is it possible to install an old-fashioned hand-pump alongside the electric well pump in case of power failure/pump failure? I realize that the easiest way to ensure continuous operation during a power outage would be to install a battery backup (possibly with a small PV setup) to run the electric pump. But humor me. Is it possible to piggy-back a manual pump onto the same well being regularly accessed by the electric one? Or does the electric pump’s setup make it impossible?
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Can’t honestly address the problem —but having lived ,at one time or another, with both systems I would guess that a savvy plumber could rig up such a system.
A lot would depend on the size of the casing,the depth to water and the well recovery rate.
However if you only want to avoid a sudden dry spell due to power loss why not just install an elevated auxiliary water tank in the line and have a back up supplyof potable water which would provide a gravity feed?
[And don’t forget to make a rule that no one flushes for a pee!]
Make it a glass lined tank to avoid rusty water and at least you can keep making coffee using a propane stove and a percolator.
Just don’t burn the place down.
Incidentally you probably already have 30 or 40 or 50 gallons of safe water in your home water heater.
EZ
Are you talking about a electric and hand pump in the same hole, or 2 seperate holes?
In my very limited well experence a electric well is usually rather deep (to get more water/ more dependable water& better quality water), while hand pumps are rather shallow. I don’t see you hand pumping from a well 500 ft down.
As a alternative, have you considered a generator, which might cost around $600, which should be able to not only run a 220 V well pump but most of the rest of your house.
Toadspittle, if I understand your qustion correctly, this is very possible, and actually commonplace where I live. I also just built a new house, and outside the house where the top of the wellpipe sticks out of the ground, we have a handpump. It is not so much a pump as it is a open/close faucet, but hopefully you understand what I mean.
It is not wired into the house, and works, I’m told by the well-digger, by magic.
You can have water without electricity, but in my case you would have to go outside or run a long hose…
All of my neighbors have this set up as well.
Get it? As well.
Feel free to use that.