How to choose a household pump for a summer residence

I don’t know about you, dear readers, but for me the trip to the dacha is a complete sacrifice. And you have to sacrifice almost everything to which you are so used to in your cozy Moscow apartment. The other day I just turned on the microwave oven at the dacha, as the neighbors yelled good obscenities, they say, their light goes out … Well, it’s okay, these are all the little things in life, you can, after all, in the country and without the wonders of electronics…

But the lack of running water and sewerage is already seriously poisoning existence. Water for watering the garden, and just for household needs, you have to drag from a public well. Fortunately, this life-giving source is located literally five meters from my site. In the end, a burning question arose on the agenda: a water pump is needed. Moreover, a standard 20-meter hose is enough to reach the well. “Such questions, dear ambassador, cannot be solved right off the bat,” I recalled the words of Georges Miloslavsky, a great friend of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, not unknown to us. Simply put, you need to know which pump is better to buy..

Pumps, as it turned out, are different. I would even say – completely different, for a wide variety of needs. We are, of course, interested in household pumps. They are of three types.

• Water pumps suitable for pumping clean water, free from sand, grass, algae and frogs. By the way, just what I need: water the garden, rinse under the shower, and wash the dishes
• Drainage pumps designed for polluted water mixed with sand, silt, algae, wood chips and other small debris. In principle, it is also a useful thing in the household. If it is an hour and a half walk to the nearest well with clean water, such a pump can be used to water the garden, and water can be taken from the nearest ditch or pond. But the main purpose of the drainage pump is to pump out contaminated water from cellars, basements and other places where it loves to accumulate in the spring..
• Fecal Pumps designed for pumping waste from the human body, for sewerage, in a word … Such a pump can easily cope with highly polluted water from a basement or drainage ditch.

Downhole pump “Grundfos” in section:
Electronics responsible for smooth engine start-up and providing constant pressure at different water flow rates (left).
“Working” part of the pump: it is here that the process of taking water from the well and transferring it “upward” to our disposal (on the right).

No, I just feel obligated to say this: the drainage pump can easily replace the water pump, and the faecal one can work for three people in general – for itself, for the water pump and for the drainage pump. But! The more complex the pump design, the higher the price. Therefore, of the entire family of domestic summer cottage pumps, water pumps are the cheapest, drainage pumps are one and a half times more expensive, and fecal pumps are the most expensive. So before buying a pump, decide for what purpose it is needed, so as not to spend extra money.

Submersible versus surface

All of these pumps are divided into submersible and surface. Submersible pumps, as the name implies, are lowered directly into the water. And surface ones are installed on the shore and connected to the reservoir with an ordinary hose..

Surface pump

PROS: easy to assemble and dismantle, requires only cleaning and lubrication of the ejector parts.
CONS: can only be used where groundwater comes close to the ground. Not suitable for deep wells and wells.

Self-priming surface pump Speroni (Italy)
Ideal for use as part of a water supply station

And further. Surface pumps can supply water to a height of 30-50 meters (some models – and higher), but they are not able to suck in water from a 15-20-meter depth – this is simply impossible. Meanwhile, in the suburbs it is not uncommon for water to be located exactly at such a depth underground..

What to do? If the water does not want to be sucked in because the pump is too far from it, let’s reduce this distance. How long will we reduce? And to zero! That is, let’s throw the pump directly into the water. For example, I have an artesian well at my dacha – 18 meters deep. This means that a surface pump is not suitable to get water..

A submersible pump with a power of 200 watts will quite cope with this task. Two hundred watts is just a little, trust me.

Submersible pump

PROS: it can be used in any wells and boreholes up to 40-50 meters deep. Does not require special installation, does not take up much space, it works almost silently in water.
CONS: inconvenient to maintain, since it is necessary to remove it from the well or well. The submersible pump is difficult to disassemble due to the sealed housing. But you will have to do this if you need lubrication and cleaning of moving parts..

The well-known submersible pump “Kid” with overheating protection

The main area of ​​application of submersible pumps is in deep and narrow wells. Especially for this purpose, pumps are made of cylindrical shape and small – from 8 centimeters – in diameter.

But, I repeat, a submersible pump is indispensable for a large well depth. If there are two meters to the water, it makes sense to use a surface pump. It can be installed under a shed, in a shed or somewhere else, bolted tightly to the floor, and locked with a key at night. Otherwise, the pump can simply be stolen. In this sense, a submersible pump will give you some inconvenience. Of course, both the well and the well, where the pump is submerged, can be closed with a lid and again locked.

But one more problem remains. So that the pump can be reached at any time, it is tied to some fixed object on the surface of the earth with a nylon rope or thick fishing line. Both do not rot from prolonged contact with water, but they can fray, burst, or simply slip out of hands. In this case, the pump will submerge completely, and you will never reach it. It is almost impossible to pull it out by the hose or power cord: their location is not designed for such a turn of events. And attempts to pull on them will lead to the fact that the pump will simply jam in the well. In general, the pump should be submerged carefully but decisively..

Specifications

Astra submersible pump for clean water with stainless steel casing

Another figure that characterizes domestic pumps is the amount of water that the pump pumps per unit of time..

Translated into normal language, the pump performance indicates how long it takes to fill, say, a 200-liter barrel. For example, with a capacity of 5 cubic meters per hour, the pump will fill such a barrel in 2.5 minutes. The higher the productivity, the faster the process will go, the lower – the slower. Let’s say that the well-known domestic submersible pump “Malysh” (by the way, very good) has a capacity of 1.5 cubic meters per hour. The barrel will be filled in 8 minutes, which is not bad at all, given that the process of filling the barrel by hand (with buckets) will take much more time and effort.

In addition, pump performance is directly related to the height at which the water has to be lifted. The same “Kid”, if you have to pump water from an 18-meter well, will reduce the productivity to 0.85 cubic meters per hour – almost twice! On the other hand, it’s okay, a barrel in 15 minutes is quite tolerable.

Graph 1. Dependence of pump performance on the water delivery head for submersible pumps of various capacities

Graph 2. Dependence of pump performance on the water delivery head for surface pumps of different models

Models

Unfortunately, domestic manufacturers are not presented as widely and beautifully as imported ones in the markets and stores, but I would like to talk about some models. First of all, it is a submersible pump “Malysh” (price 750-950 rubles, depending on the length of the electric cable) with overheating protection (I have not seen a model without protection) and its more powerful and “pot-bellied” brother “Watering” (1200 rubles .). Of the surface pumps, the most common models are “Kama 10” and “Agidel” (as well as its analogue “Palesse” from the Belarusian brothers). “Kama 10” (1200 rubles) is a good unit, but “Agidel” back in 1991 was going to be removed from production as a technically and morally obsolete model … but they still produce and sell for 1200-1250 rubles. (Palesse costs about the same). The BN-2-40 model from the Moscow Pumping Plant is one to one “copied” from the Italians, but inferior to them in appearance.

Submersible pump “Grundfos” for dirty water

Well, imported goods are mainly represented by the German trademark Grundfos (Grundfos), a joint Italian-Japanese creation under the name Ebara (Ebara) and ten or one and a half Italian brands, similar as two drops of water (firms Astra, Nochchi ” other). They look approximately the same both on the outside and on the internal structure, and do not differ in the principle of operation..

All of them are quite reliable and managed to prove themselves well in work. Still, German quality prevails. The sellers, the neighbors at the dacha, and even the Mosvodokanal specialist I interrogated with passion, who wished to remain anonymous for some reason, unanimously urged me to buy a German-made pump … or a Malysh pump with overheating protection. Personally, as a patriot, it pleases me.

Let’s summarize. For clarity, I propose to consider several of the most common problems of “water production” in the country. And, accordingly, their solution.

Problem
How to get water from a well or well for household needs and watering a garden?

Decision
We need a water pump for shallow (up to 5 meters) wells and wells. For a deep well (over 5 meters), a submersible pump is needed.

Problem
How to drain dirty water from wells, ditches, basements, cellars, pools?

Decision
We need a drainage submersible or semi-submersible pump (only its lower part is lowered into the water) with manual or automatic activation. When turned on automatically, the pump will turn on itself every time the water level rises to the maximum allowable mark. (The so-called float switch.)

Problem
How to divert sewage and heavily contaminated water?

Decision
Need a fecal pump with automatic or manual activation. An automatic switch will ensure that the pump starts when the water reaches a certain level, or every time you flush the toilet or sink. Other options for automatic activation are also possible, which must be agreed with the seller and installer of pumping equipment.

And the last thing. I strongly do not recommend making the sewage system on your own – it is difficult, it requires special knowledge and skills. Otherwise, you will drown … well, let’s say, in problems.

Expert opinion

Gennady Vasilyevich, employee of the emergency service of Mosvodokanal:

– I have been dealing with pumps of different brands and sizes for more than 20 years. I know from experience that it is not rational to use surface pumps. According to the documents, they must pump water from a depth of up to 8 m, but in practice this figure is reduced to 6–7 m. For submersible pumps, the depth of water “capture” is at least five times greater. Therefore, submersible pumps are more versatile. Take, for example, the “Kid” pump, which is widely used by summer residents. Nice pump. Designed for wells with a diameter of 6 inches (slightly over 15 cm). “Kid” practically does not require maintenance, does not heat up, as the pumped water serves as natural cooling. And surface pumps on a hot summer day can heat up so that the thermal protection device will automatically turn off the pump every 30 seconds..

And further. I would like to give some good advice. Basically, what is a well? This is a hole in the ground where the pipe is inserted so that the walls of the well do not crumble and block the well. So, a borehole pump with a diameter of, for example, 80 mm may not fit into a pipe with a diameter of 85 mm. Why? Because our pipes are the most crooked pipes in the world. Therefore, the diameter of the pump must be selected with a margin so that it is at least 10-15 millimeters less than the pipe diameter..

As for the products of the Moscow Pumping Plant, the BN-2-40 model (surface pump) is copied from the Italian pump. True, our pump is inferior to the Italian design and packaging. And so – no worse than imported.

Yuri Kurta, engineer, head of the Grundfos representative office in Moscow:

Surface circulation pump for clean water brand “Grundfos”.
It can work in water supply, heating, irrigation systems, etc., where there is water circulation

– What are the advantages of our products? First of all, our pumps are about build quality and reliability in operation. Of course, the seller of another company will tell you the same about his product. But Grundfos has very specific achievements that no one else has. For example, the SQE series borehole (submersible) pumps can provide constant water pressure at a variable flow rate. This means that for these models it does not matter whether the pump feeds one tap or simultaneously supplies water to ten points of water intake, including the irrigation system – the water pressure in all cases will be the same. Other well-known brands of household pumps cannot provide this – their water pressure is determined by the number of open water taps. The more points of water intake (shower, garden irrigation system, etc.), the thinner the stream of water.

Second point. It is known: the smaller the diameter of a submersible pump, the easier it is to submerge it in a narrow deep well. So, the diameter of Grundfos SQ series pumps is from 3 inches (approximately 76 mm), and other well-known pump manufacturers produce models with a minimum diameter of 4 inches (a little more than 100 mm). Hence the conclusion: such a massive pump will not enter every well.