Spring Gravity feeds tank.

Hello... I have a tank which is gravity fed from a spring, inside the tank there is a pump, which pumps to the house. The existing electrical system is dilapidated. It consisted of a disconnect feeding a relay box, then to another relay box which had two capicators, then from that box to the tank pump. Any recommendations on a good electrical system for this application?

How far is the tank from the house? What size are the wires? Are they wired into a breaker already? Are you planning on using AC, or do you want to try and do an off-grid DC system? Does the pump work? Do you know how many HP the pump is? How high does the pump have to lift the water to get to the house? How big is the pipe? What kind of pipe is it? How many gallons per minute do you want at the house? How many gallons per minute flow into your tank? How many gallons is the tank? Is there a float switch in the tank?

Without knowing any of that, I could really only say that you need a submersible electric water pump. There are going to be a lot of factors that need to be considered to find a suitable one. Fill in some blanks, and I am sure I or someone else could likely point you in the right direction.  I use a similar setup at my place.

Thank you for the reply. Yes, let me provide more context. The tank is about half a mile away, down a valley of steep incline. I would guess that the house is at least 500 to 600 feet above the tank. For the longest time we ran off of a well next to the house, unfortunately with the drought, that well is beginning to dry up, so plan b is the spring. Years ago, the spring was the main water supply before the well. Next to tank by the spring stands a utility pole, where an AC Panel is mounted with a 100-amp service. From that 100-amp panel there is a 30-amp 2 pull breaker feeding the pump that currently sits inside the tank. I am going to pull new number 10 wires from the main panel to the disconnect. Currently there is no pipe going from that tank to the house. I think the old line was a 1-inch galvanized pipe.  Probably 8 gallons per minute would be sufficient. In essence I am going to use the pump that is already in the tank, I am just not sure how the system works and what I need to install after the disconnect as far as electrical goes. Do I need a float with a gravity fed system? What does the pump need in order to turn on and off automatically as water comes and goes? I don’t have any information on the pump itself, but I will attach a picture of the pump and old electrical system.

Wow, that has been allowed to fall apart.
I suggest talking with an electrician if its beyond you. Otherwise a bit of a study of nearby setups may help.
Maybe a weatherproof metal cabinet will help, I use them here.
I notice rust around the next of the tank, are you sure the tank has no holes underneath?

By running a slow pump at that location and using a 1 inch or better an 1 1/2 inch poly pipe the power costs would be lower.
Then have another tank near the house, but uphill from it to enable a higher flow into the house.

Yes, it was abandoned years ago by the previous owner. The electrical part won't be an issue, after I gain some knowledge of how the system works, which is why I am here. I was considering putting a liner of some sort in the tank, as of now it seems to hold water fine. Any recommendations for a steel tank sealant?

Trent Drummond wrote:The electrical part won't be an issue, after I gain some knowledge of how the system works, which is why I am here.

Haha, this sounds like you are planning on not having any difficulty at all pulling yourself up by your boot-straps, once you get a good grip on them. 600 feet of head is quite a lot, and remember that the pump needs to to add at least another 100 "feet" to pressurize your well tank at the top of the hill to get the 50 or so PSI you want for your house water pressure. Hopefully the pump is still sound, and they are generally built to last, as hoisting them out of a well at the end of hundreds of feet of pipe is a real bitch. Thankfully, you will have easy access to it. If it is toast, you will need to get one that is rated for about 700 feet of head, which I am starting to think is going to be a bit of a specialty item, and maybe a little bit harder to track down.

As for getting the electrical side of things figured out, I think I would honestly suggest you contact a local well driller or pump service shop unless you are willing to put in some time learning about electric motors and well pumps. They would know what they were looking at, and could probably have it up and running in no time, if it does indeed still work. The wiring looks terrible, and I see several wires that have been simply snipped off, so I am wondering what happened there. It is most likely a 220v pump with the start capacitors and some sort of  control box on the outside of the tank. Those long skinny pumps are designed to sit inside a well casing, so they are designed to cool the motor by pulling water past the motor on the way towards the intake. It is hard to see in the photo, but the pump itself should be inside a sleeve of some sort, or else being mounted in a large tank, there would not be enough cooling flow and the motor would quickly burn out.

Speaking of burning out, those pumps must not be run dry! This is where the control box comes in, and in a big tank like this, you would want a float switch of some sort. If the pump can empty the tank faster than the spring can fill it, you need there to be some way to force the pump to stop running when the water level gets too low. Again, a well pump specialist would be the person to talk to about that; I have never installed a well pump with a control box. I have a small 400 gallon cistern for my pump, but I am running it off an inverter, so I control the inverter with my float switch, rather than the pump. It looks like a pretty big tank, so hopefully the spring will be able to keep it mostly full, and you will not have to deal with having it fill another cistern at the top of the hill or anything like that.

I agree that the rusted seam around the neck is a little concerning. Also, I dont really know anything about steel tanks, as everything has gone over to plastic now. There are probably plastic membranes thats are rated for potable water that could be custom made to your tanks dimensions. Honestly, I would wonder a little bit about what the steel was painted with, and if it is starting to rust or flake off inside, I am not sure I would be wild about having that stuff floating around in my drinking water.

Anyway, hopefully some of that helps point you in the right direction, sorry to hear about your well drying up.

I am not sure about liners.
I know they can be made, maybe locally people will know who does them. try a pump / irrigation business.
You may find a new or used Poly tank would be better.
I know some people have concerns about poly tanks, but 1000,s of other are happy with them.

Optimism goes along way, sometimes a long way the wrong way. Thank you for the tips.

A reliable water source is gold. But that's a lot of head to overcome.

I wonder if there are other options. There used to be low flow positive displacement (PD) pumps (think of a piston, as opposed to the centrifugal pumps we mostly use now).

I don't suppose there's enough natural flow to power a ram pump, feeding a tank at house level?

I'm thinking that once you have a full tank at house level, it's easy and inexpensive to install a small jet pump pressure system to feed the house.