Submersible pump question

I’m looking to find a submersible pump to place in a stream on my property for the purposes of pumping water to a small irrigation cistern about 300 feet away (and 10 feet higher in elevation). Preferably solar powered. Anyone have any recommendations?

Hi Chris,   Sorry, no advice on a DC pump but have you considered a ram pump? Found a video which seems to somewhat match your situation: Ram pump

Or a platypus pomp which has blades spun by the flowing water which pumps water away from the stream. Rams are beautiful works of engineering.

Here are a couple old standbys and one found on a brief search.

https://www.altestore.com/store/solar-water-pumps/submersible-solar-pumps/shurflo-pumps-accessories/shurflo-9325-submersible-pump-and-902-200-shurflo-controller-kit-p10659/

https://www.altestore.com/store/solar-water-pumps/submersible-solar-pumps/sun-pumps-c688/

https://www.walmart.com/ip/WALFRONT-1-2Inch-12V-Submersible-Deep-Well-Water-DC-Pump-Alternative-Energy-Solar-Powered-Pump-Deep-Well-Pump/678331513?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=15913&adid=22222222228251257679&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=295084066277&wl4=aud-566049426705:pla-521696578785&wl5=9058203&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=118787315&wl11=online&wl12=678331513&wl13=&veh=sem&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpYmb8pjG4AIVCQdpCh0YEgMWEAQYCSABEgJ3pvD_BwE

One of the first utility applications i saw was a submersible shurflow pump in a river to purify water by reverse osmosis during a large wilderness event. Just a rope across and a rope down  to the pump from the middle and some odd lot of panels, maybe 200w laid out on the ground. It provided overflowing amounts of pure water throuought the event and for a good many people.

This is not exactly a reply to the question, but i have a maintenance tip that would have saved me money (editor, please place this wherever you think is right):

I have a 400' deep well with submersible pump, 3 hp. And I thought the rubber-bladder type storage tanks attached to the system were adequate. (I had 2 tanks in parallel, with the bigger that had 80 gallons of storage storage in my house, and a smaller 10 or 15 gal tank right close to the well, to eliminate chatter and cycling.)  Well, it worked well for14 years or so, then the bladders in both tanks gave out, so that (unknown to me) the system had started cycling -- turning on and off repeatedly, which is hard on all the well components. The part that failed was the 90 degree elbow where the pipe changes direction and pokes thru the well casing, to attach to the underground pipe going to the house.  But it could have been some other plumbing part, or maybe even the pump. And the reason was, the lack of any air cushion in the tanks, due to the failure of the bladders in both tanks.
  So the maintenance i'm proposing is, Every Month Without Fail, take your pressure gauge to all tanks on your system, making sure there's still the right air pressure inside the tank. (If the bladder has failed, the gage will read zero.) I suggest "every month" on the theory that your well has two (or more) pressure tanks in parallel, as mine does. But if only one tank, I don't know what to suggest -- if it starts cycling, something could fail in a day or less. (Maybe you'd notice decreased water pressure in the house?? Dunno.) Then when the 1st bladder fails, it's unlikely the second would do so right away, so you'd have time to shut the system down, and replace the failed component.
  Please, if any experienced plumber or well person reads this and has an improvement, add it to this thread!

@Jerry Brown ...

The part that failed on your well system is called a pitless adapter. It has that name because while you do need a pit to install the pitless adapter the first time, after that you can change pumps without having to dig a pit since the pump draws water through, and is held in place by that tapered, wedged fitting. It is replaced by just threading a T handle pipe onto that fitting and lifting it up.

As for your recommended maintenance, on a typical system with only one tank, the monthly checks are not required. You know when the bladder goes out of the tank because the system only has pressure when the pump is running. With a pin hole in that rubber bladder, the pressure switch does not detect pressure, so when you turn on the water, the pump instantly comes on. Typically, there is a pressure gauge right on the pressure switch manifold and should always read 40 pounds or higher whether the pump is running or not. If you run a tap, the pump instantly comes on, and then drops pressure as the pump shuts off; you know your bladder has a hole in it.

Another problem could be a non-air-tight fitting. If you have a crack, rusted pin hole, or a loose fitting, air can be introduced into the well system. In this situation, water falls back to the waterline of the well, and when you go to use the water, for a few minutes you have regular water pressure, then an annoying blast of air, then start getting water again. In this case, because you have water pressure from the start, you know its not a bad bladder, or check valve, but rather an air leak causing loss of vacuum somewhere between the water level in the well, and the check valve at the pressure regulator. Trust me on this; its not always obvious where they are leaking and can take forever to find. It took me a year to find my pin hole!

As for your initial problem, its 2 AM and I have had no coffee yet so I may not fully understand your reasoning for two cold water storage tanks, but it seems you used another tank as a means to soften something called water hammer in your system. If that is the case, they do make accumulators that eliminate that water hammering for very cheap money.

Chris Spewock wrote:I’m looking to find a submersible pump to place in a stream on my property for the purposes of pumping water to a small irrigation cistern about 300 feet away (and 10 feet higher in elevation). Preferably solar powered. Anyone have any recommendations?

I have a similar issue, but it is in filling a swimming pool from a river that is about like yours, 300 feet from my pool.

I just use a sump pump. It has a one inch line, and one inch black plastic pipe is cheap. So I put (3) lengths of 100 foot black plastic pipe together, toss the submersible pump in a bucket drilled with holes to filter out the sediment and mud of the river bottom, and then use a generator to power the sub pump. For me all that is cheaper than paying a guy to fill my pool with trucked in water.

While it does use gasoline, at 3700 gallons per hour, it does not use much. I can fill my pool on just a few gallons of gasoline, and I am sure your irrigation cistern is a lot smaller in capacity then my 10,000 gallon pool. While I understand the reasoning behind solar, to be honest with you, sometimes just keeping things simple, with standard stuff you can get from a hardware store, just makes more sense. I mean you only have to run the jenny for 8 minutes to fill a 500 gallon tank, and a small one is cheap to buy at Harbor Freight Tools.

Our well is actually located on the property next door, so my first clue that all was not well was finding low pressure at my sink. And when I went to the wellhouse to check, I could easily hear the "shoosh" of high pressure water against the inside of the well casing, and even see it when I removed the cap.
At that time I didn't realize the "friable" nature of the soil surrounding the bottom of the bore, and my neighbor and I still needed water, so we left the pump turned on for some period until workers could come out.  And I think the problem turned out to be, the pitless adapter was OK, but the 1 1/4" PVC just below it had cracked and had to be replaced. But I didn't know enough to tell the well guy about our 2 pressure tanks, so he thought the problem was likely caused by a failed check valve in the line. So he started hauling the pipe up to get to the check valve, and then the pump got wedged in the hole, and would go neither up nor down,  and to clear it he tried to rotate the pump to a different angle. And I saw him rotating it, counter-clockwise, without realizing a problem, and he unscrewed the line out of the pump and dropped the pump down to the bottom of the well.  And then had the effrontery of trying to sell me installation of a new pump for a bill of $8000 or $9000, depending on the pump!
Anyway, thanks for your advice.