muddstopper
Veteran Member
BIL called me up a little while ago to discuss building a windmill water pump to keep his stock tanks full of water. He had mentioned this project about a year ago and has already built the windmill. He used 8 plastic 55 gal drums cut in half with the halves stacked on top of each other and bolted together for vanes. He put the 8 vanes on a 8ft dia cable reel. Using 1in rod for a vertical shaft. Now he is wanting to build a piston type water pump out of PVC. This is where things start getting iffy. Mostly because the windmill is vertical instead of horizonal and I dont think the 1in shaft material is going to hold up well supporting a 8ft dia x about 6ft tall wind mill. To cap it off the windmill is about 20ft above and 150ft from the pond he wants to pump water out of. Also, he is wanting to run 1/2in pex tubing from the pump to the pond. He has alread aquired the pext tubing. I have looked at several pvc pump designs on utube and think I can pretty much build the pump as they aint that complicated. My question is whether or not the pex tubing will work as the suction side of the pump. My first thoughts are that the pex is made to hold pressure, but I am afraid it will collaspe as a suction line. With 20ft of head, it is going to take about 9 lb of vacuum just to pull the water up to the pump. My second concern is the 1/2in tubing being to small . He's not trying to pump large amounts of water. Not sure what I am getting into, plan on checking things out one day next week. Until then, I need a few opinions and suggestions on how to proceed.