Waterworks

This account will give you some idea of how I have been experimenting extracting water from the well.

I have installed a small 12 volt pump.

The extraction rate is quite low, I estimate about 40 gallons per hour, so to fill a cube takes around 6 hours.

Today I extracted about 350 gallons and used it to top up the cubes on a couple of the neighbouring plots.

I have now connected the feed from the well to supply 2 new elevated water butts behind my shed.

The water from these butts is for all to use of course so please let everyone know they can help themselves.

If the butts are drained it will take around 2 hours for them to completely refill but if this proves to be a problem another butt or even a cube could be added.

There are two taps available so two watering cans can be filled at once or one can can be filled at double speed.

There is a ball valve switch installed so the pump switches off when the butts are full.

At present I am using rechargeable batteries to power the pump, these are heavy for me to carry from allotment to home and back so if the trial is successful a solar panel would be worth considering to enable the batteries to be recharged on site.

I estimate a fully charged battery will give around 24 hours pumping time.

It is still a trial in progress but more information will follow.