Water Pressure problems from A gravity fed barrel

Hey there!

I have a catchment system with some big blue barrels around the house. I've double up each barrel with a buddy and a short hose, and everything is slightly raised. My hoop house is a few hundred yards away, and quite a bit below. When the barrels are full I get good pressure, but I have to wait a LONG time for air bubbles to clear and water to flow continuously.

But when the barrels are less than full, even at 50%, the wait is interminable, and sometimes the water just dribbles and never sprays. There should be more than enough head, the tops of the barrels has an opening for air flow, the hose is pretty direct without loops and kinks.

Any ideas on how to make good use of every drop from the rain barrels?

What is the diameter of the hose,
how long is it , other than a few hundred yards
what is the difference in height [ head ] between the barrel  and the hoop house floor
other than quite a bit below?

Everything is slightly raised ... maybe this is the problem.

Raise everything up higher. Is it really gravity fed?

The hose is standard garden hose, and I think the two hoses together are 150yd or so? The bottom of the barrel is above the TOP of the hoops of the hoop house, so I'll estimate at least 20 ft. of head. Possibly more.

You don't have enough head to push out enough pressure when the tanks get half full. You will need to put in a fairly size bladder pressure tank. The air bladder will give you enough of a push. Even with the head you're still pushing water out about 150 yards. Gravity can only do so much.

You could also plumb in an air release valve(aav) on the highest point near the tank. Will need to know more about the system, either you're getting air in somewhere or not completely bleeding the air before you open the valve to water, or the lack of pressure is causing air to back feed. Hard to tell unless I know more about the system and what all components you have.

If you don't want to put a pressure tank you can try smaller orifice to when watering plants. 20 feet of head is roughly 8-9 psi, with a garden hose you're not going to get much flow.

I work in a water plant, we have a tank on top the mountain, with a 10" line, 150 feet of head down the mountain, comes out at about 150 psi,we reduce the pressure down to 65psi so no plumbing gets blown out. Lol. Just to give you an idea. even though your water traveling horizontal it still will slow down due to friction and losses.

If possible run your line above the hoop house, a long the grade of where your barrel are laying...then have it drop down after that 150 to run up, if that makes sense. You will probably need more hose though.

Rad Anthony wrote:You don't have enough head to push out enough pressure when the tanks get half full. You will need to put in a fairly size bladder pressure tank. The air bladder will give you enough of a push. Even with the head you're still pushing water out about 150 yards. Gravity can only do so much.

You could also plumb in an air release valve(aav) on the highest point near the tank. Will need to know more about the system, either you're getting air in somewhere or not completely bleeding the air before you open the valve to water, or the lack of pressure is causing air to back feed. Hard to tell unless I know more about the system and what all components you have.

If you don't want to put a pressure tank you can try smaller orifice to when watering plants. 20 feet of head is roughly 8-9 psi, with a garden hose you're not going to get much flow.

I work in a water plant, we have a tank on top the mountain, with a 10" line, 150 feet of head down the mountain, comes out at about 150 psi,we reduce the pressure down to 65psi so no plumbing gets blown out. Lol. Just to give you an idea. even though your water traveling horizontal it still will slow down due to friction and losses.

If possible run your line above the hoop house, a long the grade of where your barrel are laying...then have it drop down after that 150 to run up, if that makes sense. You will probably need more hose though.

Oh! This is excellent info. There is some "extra" hose length, sounds like I should switch one of the hoses to a shorter one to take up the excess? From the sounds that I hear in the hose I suspect the air is back feeding uphill. So as a smaller orifice, you mean the hose end tool?

Anytime. More hose if you plan on running the line above the hoop house for that 150yd run. Instead of on the ground. If your hoop house was a house, it's like running the hose along the roof then dropping it down to where you want it, instead of running the hose along the floor straight from the tank.

Smaller orifice meaning a smaller pipe, like a small nozzle opening they have on those drip irrigation system. They don't need a lot of pressure and are fairly passive you can have them dripping all day very slow if you wanted to.

Yea the air is trying to find the way out up at the top. There's different ways to get the air out or prevent it from coming in, check valves, aav, etc.

The bladder pressure tank seems like what you need. And you can build on that and attach a pump if need be. But seems like you want to keep it off grid without much gizmos. Best of luck.

Unless you may have a small leak on the hose itself, try adding some plumber tape and sealant of the hose fittings and tighten with a pliers or channel locks.

P I suggest you run a 1 inch polypipe minimum from your barrels to ensure you have flow.

Sometimes I find it more efficient to trickle water to a tank at the watering location, using a cattle watering float to shut off flow when full. I can move a lot of water very quickly by hand from a full tank.

We are hoping to get one of these. Maybe not a hose solution but can it be connected to a hose?

Suzette Thib wrote:
We are hoping to get one of these. Maybe not a hose solution but can it be connected to a hose?

We actually have one of these that we use to move water from barrels on the far side of the house to barrels on the garden side. Works, but it is slow as molasses... (I put that on the honey-do list)