Pump at bottom of hill or top?

Hello All!
First post!
What a tonne of great info here.  Well done!
I am starting my homestead on 25 acres in NB just outside Fundy Nation Park.
Working on a water supply.  The stream I have for water is 1600' downhill.
Would it be better to pull the water uphill or push it up the hill with the electric pump?

Anybody tap into a stream with some ideas please share!

Cheers

Welcome!

Much better to push. To the point that you will have a real hard time finding a pump that could do the job in a 'pull' configuration..

I know very little about this,  but it occurs to me that a series of ponds or tanks at different elevations would let you string together a series of cheaper pumps.
If any one if them fails, there would be water staged along the way, plus you could move them around, leap frog style.

Someone else might suggest a ram pump,  but I don't know enough about them to comment.

If the change in elevation is more than about 32 feet, I believe your only choice is a pump that pushes.

Welcome to Permies.  

That's a tall order for a ram pump. Impossible for a single one.  When I googled ram pump capability: "A 2-inch ram pump can supply 3000 gallons per day (2 gallons per minute) to a storage tank that is 75 feet higher than the pump using a drive line that is 2-inch diameter steel and 50 feet long from a supply reservoir located 10 feet higher than the pump." From my quick calculations (could be wrong) you'd need 25 ram pumps, and ponds to do it.  These rams are easier to build than windmills, but that's a lot of ponds.  Look online for do it yourself ram pumps.  

If you've got wind and the ingenuity to build them, you could probably pump it with a smaller series of windmills to a pond at the upper part of your property, and then gravity feed into the homestead. I googled windmill pump capacity : "A typical windmill with 8' diameter wheel can lift water 185 feet and pump about 150 gallons an hour in 15 to 20 mph winds when using a 1 ¾ “pump cylinder. " You'd need 9 eight foot wide windmills to do the job.  That's a lot less ponds.  

To do this with a power pump would be quite expensive, as you would still need a series of them and ponds, from what I can tell from a quick search.

I'm no expert, just know my way around google a bit on this one.    

Hopefully someone with some experience on long distance pumping will chime in.

We use a gas powered water pump at our rivers edge during the summer to help irrigate our property. We've experimented having it higher and lower on the bank and have always found that the lower we keep it, the faster it can prime itself and also not have as much atmospheric pressure to overcome.

always found that the lower we keep it, the faster it can prime itself and also not have as much atmospheric pressure to overcome.

 This much I can also confirm.  How high up do you pump the water, Gerry?  The biggest issue with the OP, I think, is going to be the extreme height that he is wanting to pump to.

We only pump ours about 100' Roberto. The pump would definitely need to be sized accordingly for sure though.
I wonder if the 1600' is distance is elevation vertically or the slope distance. Would make a big difference.

I wonder if the 1600' is distance is elevation vertically or the slope distance. Would make a big difference.

very true.  I was assuming vertical.

A pump placed at the top of a hill (or well) can only suck up water from 20ft below. At 21ft it simple just does not work.
So if you have a hill (or well) with a elevation change of 20 or 100 or 600ft, the pump will have to be at the bottom, not at the top.

The 20ft limit has to do with physic (atmospheric/vacuum pressure), which I myself don't quite understand. But yes it is better to push the water uphill vs to suck it from the bottom of the hill.

All the common pumps put the motor as low as possible and pump up. Submersible pumps down into wells, even well pumps with the motors on top run a driveshaft down to the pump vanes. Building a pump that has enough suction to draw water hundreds or thousands of feet would take specialty pipe that wouldn't collapse, and a pump mechanism that can do high vacuum. Peristaltic pumps, diaphragm pumps would be the thing to look for if one had to suck instead of push.