Using Totes for irrigation supply--Questions:

[ocaj11]

Hi All,

I had a 4" well drilled on my property last week. I'm getting around 10 GPM steady at 40ish psi. This would be OK if I only wanted to hook up a couple of impact sprinklers, but I would like to get more GPM so I can run more impact heads at a time. I just ran 1000' of 1.5 inch pvc from the well to my house and 500' of wire from my shop (power source) to the well. The well pump is 1/2 HP and gives me a pretty good stream of water out of the hose 1000' away.

Today, I purchased 4 330 gallon totes. I want to plumb those four totes together and locate them next to the well. The totes can't be pressurized, so I can't use a pressure switch to cut the pump off when the totes get full, I'm thinking a float switch at the top of one of the totes would be my best option. The float switch would engage the pump when the water level drops and disengage when the water level returns.

I'm planning to install a 1.5 - 2.0 HP irrigation pump about 500' away (at my shop) that will pull water from the totes. I would like to get around 20 - 25 GPM at 50 psi to the end of my pipe which will be another 500' away. The totes will hold 1,340 gallons of water. The 1/2 HP well pump will fill the totes at around 10 GPM. I should be able to comfortably run the irrigation pump for an hour before I have to let the totes fill again.

Here are my questions:

1. Has anyone tried this successfully?
2. Does anyone have an idea what kind of float switch I would need to use?
3. Will there be any issue installing the irrigation pump 1/2 way between the well and house? The land is practically flat for the entire length of run.
4. Assuming I use a pressure switch on the output side of the irrigation pump. Will I need a pressure tank installed there? I think this should work running the sprinkler heads, but what about using a single water hose at the house?
5. How many GPM would the irrigation pump deliver through the single water hose? I assume it's going to deliver much less than the 25 GPM it would deliver running multiple impact sprinklers?
5. Are there any issues with this plan that I need to address?

Thanks for all the advice. :thumbsup:

Keith

 

[newbury]

Before we can get energized to reply we need PICS!!

I'm interested because I just gave my cousin-in-law, Dr. Johnson, one of the totes given to me by Taylortractornut.



He just puts it in the back of his truck and after filling it drives it up to his watermelon patch.

I'm sure for next year he will want a more "automated" approach.

 

[forgeblast]

if you want to look at pumping from the ibc totes look at how some of the aquaponics people do it. Many have float switches that they use. https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIE_enUS400US400&q=ibc+aquaponics

 

[radioman]

First off I am wondering if you are planning to use both sprinkler heads and filling totes same time? If not, why not tee in a pipe from well pump to your shop since its only 500 ft away to the totes instead of 1000 ft like to your house. You could use the toilet fill valves in each one of those totes instead of messing with tying them together so its one big sharing unit. This way, it you need to move one of them, it can still work in any configuration with a shutoff valve before toilet fill valve. If you need pressurized water, just use a shallow well pump/tank combo that pulls water from all tanks.

 

[boggen]

ya doing what many folks do with "rain barrels" other words they run there gutter down spouts to barrels or to some sort of collection container. and then use a pump, to water things from there.

some things you will have issues with. the totes should be covered up. so no sun light hits them. or you will end up having issues with algae that could cause clogs with the irritation pump.

if the pump for the well is down inside the well itself, if you can tee/ wye right into the pipe near the well. for filling the totes. you will more likely have more GPM filling the totes vs trying to fill totes if placed near house or shed.

the totes would need an "auto fill valve" you can normally find auto fill valves at pond stores, pool stores, and agriculture stores for horse/cattle/live stock water tanks.

you will have issue of gunk and stuff settling into the bottom of these tanks, so make sure you figure out a way to easily wash them out and remove gunk in the bottom. 2" shower drains, been used many times as "bulkheads" Koiphen.com see the pond and construction forum. and look for DIY male / female adapters as being used as bulkheads as well.

you will most likely want a "low water shut off" switch. if you hooking all 4 totes together. for the irrigation pump. so pump shuts off when not enough water.

you will want some sort of "dome" or slit or holed pipe in bottom of each tote on the outlets. so a whirl pool does not form and cause air to be sucked into the pump.

hint: come out the bottom of each tote with a 2" shower drain. then run them into a common 2" pipe. with tees or wye fittings. wye off to irritation pump. and then put a valve or clean out plug. so you can easily drain the totes and wash them out. a dome could be a flower pot with some concrete placed into it, and turned up side down, and placed over the 2" shower drain inside the tote.

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problem is "short cycling" and could cause pump to rapidly turn on/off when water level gets low, and might look into some sort of extend timer to keep irrigation pump off. or get a shut off switch that you can adjust for a few inches, to reduce "short cycling" for the irrigation pump.

i would suggest a well tank / pressure tank, with pressure switch on irritation pump. it is extra cost and you do not have to have a well tank / pressure tank, if no tank, you will always need to have a something on, sprinkler, garden hose, or something, to let water flow through the pump, or you could burn the pump up.

with a pressure tank and pressure switch for irrigation pump. you could open garden hose faucet and have water right there when you needed it, vs making sure something is on, sprinkler is already setup, garden hose with no nozzle already hooked up and valve is fully open, and then going back and turning on the irrigation pump.

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there will be issue of causing a possible "siphon" between well and totes. so you will most likely want to cut a hole in the tops of totes. were auto fill valve is located. and you will want to place a peacock (double check valve) between well and auto fill valve. so if for what ever reason check valves fail, you do not siphon water out of totes back down into well or into the house. and possibly contaminating your water supply.

if water in the totes may be setting for some time between uses, you may want to setup a small submersible fountain pump. or setup a small air lift using an aquarium air pump. to circulate water between all totes. so water does not become stagnate and breading ground for bugs.

you can normally pickup a fair cheap "leaf basket" for say a pool pump. or pond pump. and use an adapter to hook it up right before the irrigation pump. to act like a small size screen, in case any sort of snakes, bugs, frogs, etc... get into the totes and make it to the pump. the leaf basket should catch most stuff, and keep the sprinkler heads from clogging up on you. and keep the irrigation pump from getting clogged up and burning up.

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WARNING it is assumed as soon as water enters the 4 totes, it is "gray water" or backrish water. meaning it is no longer "drinkable water / suited for human consumption" as long as you just use the water for irrigation and like you should be fine, but as soon as think about hooking the water up coming from totes to a sink, or like, you get in a whole mess of regulations and codes. that can get very expensive, and can require extra filters and like, and on top of that fines if not properly setup for human consumption.

 

[ocaj11]

Fantastic information guys. That gives me a lot to think about. I will take some pictures of the setup once I figure out exactly how to set it up. :laughing:

I am planning to fill the totes at the same time I'm pulling water with the irrigation pump (will only be used for irrigation. No household use). I think that gives me the most amount of water and that's the reason I want to plumb them all together. Each tote has a 2" npt outlet on the bottom and a lid on the top. I'm planning to use a 2" pvc pipe and 2" pvc fittings to make a manifold at the bottom so water is constantly pulled off the bottom. My plan is to fill one tote from the well and let the water flow through the bottom manifold to fill the remaining three totes. I'll have to watch things closely to see if that actually works. I will add a screened vent pipe to the top of each tote to prevent pressure build up inside the totes and to keep bugs and debris out. I will cover the totes or paint them silver to keep sunlight out. I do want to place the totes by the well for a couple of reasons. First, the well location is out of the way so I won't have to look at 4 ugly totes while driving in and out. Second, I will get the most GPM this way.

1. One thing I'm not clear on that boggen mentioned: How does the "dome" or "holed pipe" stop a whirlpool from forming inside the totes? This seems like a valid concern and I want to make sure I understand what needs to be done to prevent the air from being sucked into the pipe.

2. I like the "auto fill valve" idea and will see what I can find. Are these valves reliable? If they fail, will they fail open or fail closed?

3. Can I use a pressure switch on the pressure side of the irrigation pump without using a tank? Would the 500' of 1.5 inch supply line sort of act like a pressure tank to turn the pump on when I'm watering and turn it off once there is no flow and the pipe pressurizes?

Thanks for all the help.

 

[boggen]

when you go do a dishes in the kitchen sink. and pull the bottom drain plug out of the sink. as the sink gets near empty, a whirl pool will normally form. and you can hear the sucking noise as air goes down the drain. the same thing can and will happen with the totes. and you can a piece of pipe and drill a bunch of holes in it. or take a piece of pipe and run it through a table saw, only cutting almost half way through pipe for a slotted pipe. (see previous reply for dome) to stop the whirl pool from forming above the bottom outlet / bottom drain on each tote. if you used a holed pipe or slotted pipe it needs to be laying down on the bottom or near bottom of the tank. a dome just sets on bottom of the tank.

if you come through the side of the tote (very low on tote itself) for an outlet to the pump, it might be easier to install a sloted or holed pipe. that lays horizontally across the bottom of the tote. there just to many ways go about the anti vortex / anti whirl pool thing. some things work better than others. but for most part all generic ideas work for keeping the whirl pool from forming and sucking air.

with auto fill valve inside a protected area you should be ok, if auto fill valve was in a water tank for live stock, or in a pond. then you would have issues with leaves, and animals nocking into the auto fill valve. beyond that, you have to deal with water supply from well. hard water, can and will cause things to clog up eventually. and that is just part of life. or less you go through expense to setup a big water softener and for irrigation i doubt that would ever pay off or ever be needed.

as far as pressure switch and no tank, that is a no go. and will cause pump to "rapidly" short cycle on/off. air will compress into a smaller area, water does not compress. all pressure tanks either rely on a rubber bladder with air, or a non blader tank with air in it. so as the water pressure builds up, the air compresses inside the tank. you most likely do not need a large pressure tank. just something big enough to reduce short cycling of the pump. with you running irrigation and multi sprinklers, my assumption will be, within the first 2 to 5 minutes any pressure tank you get will empty, and then all water going to sprinklers will come straight from the irrigation pump.

on other hand if you do not run enough sprinklers at one time. and say only run a single sprinkler or garden hose, you could have pump short cycling. due to smaller size pressure tank emptying quickly enough, but not using enough water, to keep the pump from continually running.

when using PVC pipe, make sure you also paint it as well. pvc pipe and sunlight do not mix long term and pipe will become brittle and easly crack. if ya spray paint the pvc pipe that is exposed to sunlight you should be ok.

if you are going through all this expense and trouble, i would advise, putting some rock with a good rubber liner say roofing liner below rock, or pouring a concrete pad for the totes. weed-eating around them, and checking things to make sure all is ok, can be a pain, when they are just setting there in the grass / dirt.

being in texas, i might advise some sort of actual roof placed over the totes, to keep the sun off the toes themselves, to help reduce evaporation. and also help reduce direct heat that would build up on tote sides and right at the ground.

one last thing to think about, when tying into the well line that runs to house. besides a line for auto fill valve, think about a regular garden faucet valve, so you have a quick easy way to clean things right there were the totes are.

 

[boggen]

errr thought i answered question #1 but i did not give clear answer to it.

a dome or holed or slotted pipe. causes the water being sucked out. to be "spread out" kinda like going from a little nozzle on a vacumm cleaner, to a large wide nozzle for cleaning off stairs or couchs. the dome or holed or slotted pipe is just that changing a nozzle from a little narrow nozzle to a wide nozzle. the difference in nozzle sizes, reduce how fast water moves right at the inlet of the nozzle. less speed, less pull on air above the water to be pulled down and out of the container.

a dome or hole or slotted pipe, goes a bit further. by putting something in the water, that also helps reduce chance of water begin to swirl around, and cause a whirl pool to form.

about all i can say is have fun playing in the kitchen with the kitchen sink, and using your hand or small plastic bowl, or small saucer plate. as you fill and empty the kitchen sink a few times.

 

[PatasColo]

Nifty thread, and lots of good info from Boggen.

The setup described shares a couple similarities with our well to cistern to housepump to pressure tank setup, for delivering water into our house.

Just a couple more quick hints for you:
- If you're doing any more automated wiring, or want to look at some interesting stuff, check out a few of the PDFs on this page: Pump Wiring | Valve Wiring It might give you some good ideas you hadn't thought of yet too.

- For filling our 500-gallon cistern, there are two "float switches" inside it. Similar to what you see near the bottom of this page: Pumps, DC One of them turns the well pump on when the level in the cistern gets low. The other turns the well pump off when it gets almost full. I think they make these valves in two styles: certified safe for drinking water, and not. The latter is probably less expensive. They also have a single switch that turns both on and off... google "well cistern float switch" and you'll see a number of varieties. You can use these switches to both protect your pumps (turn off irrigation pump when level gets too low) and to refill your tanks (turn on well pump when level falls below the refill threshold, then turn off well pump when full level reached).

- Here is another link to a float valve I ran across, but have never used or have any experience with these. MECHANICAL FLOAT SWITCH FOR FILLING OPEN TANKS SUCH AS CISTERNS OR STOCK TANKS.

Best of luck! :thumbsup:
-Mitch

 

[ocaj11]

Thanks all for the awesome information. Especially Boggen for taking the time to post the detailed responses.

I think I have the information I need to get started. I'll post some pics of the setup when I get it running so others can see what I've done.