Plumbing a Solar Well Pump

here’s how we’re going to get the plumbing set up for the pump on the top of the pump is a three-quarter inch female pipe thread and that leaves us a couple of options on how we’re going to hook up the rest of the system one option is to use PVC pipe with a PVC pipe adapter what we like is poly pipe that leaves us two options here we have three quarter inch in one inch for a poly pipe both of them with 3/4 inch fitting your system comes with a poly pipe adapter if you request it we can supply either 1 inch or 3/4 inch which comes standard with kits in order to get this set up first we’re going to take some teflon tape apply it to the 3/4 inch male side of the doctor

with the tape applied we can now screw or barb into our pipe connection so we’re going to get a pretty snug here using our wrench not too tight that we cracked the fitting but tight enough that we’re not gonna getting leaking of water when it’s under pressure so right about there is pretty good

using the standard hose barb the water will naturally flow out of the drop pipe back down through the pump and interior well this provides freeze protection and winter but if you’re using a pressurized system that’s not going to be useful for you because you need pressure be held at the pump head so what that’s going to do choir is our check valve so there’s an arrow on the check valve with the direction of flow in this case we want pointing up and then we’re going to use our three-quarter inch nipple in order to make the connection again we’ll use pipe tape on the pipe threads

fine we will need to do it on both sides for a nice waterproof connection looking at the arrow again we’ll thread it on to our one-way valve and then we’ll thread it on to the top of the pump once it’s snug we can use a wrench to ensure a nice tight waterproof connection now your barb or your PVC coupler will fit right on the top in order to connect your poly pipe or PVC pipe

from here we’re gonna connect over a poly pipe our kit comes with two hose clamps and normally you’ll be using a big roll of poly pipe this here is about 50 feet of one inch poly pipe you may be using longer for your installation but for this demo we’re going to use a short piece of three-quarter inch poly pipe first we’re going to apply our hose clamps onto our poly pipe then we’re going to put our poly pipe onto our hose barb it should be a fairly tight fit most of the time you’ll be able to get it on without heating it up but if you notice it’s too tight of a fit you can use a heat gun or torch in order to soften the plastic slightly in order to get this on next we’re going to tighten down our hose clamps you can use a screw driver or socket wrench in order to get a very tight fit with our first hose clamp tighten we’re going to move on to our second hose clamp one important note you do not want both hose clamps lined up in the same spot you want them offset by 180 degrees this prevents any leakage through the flat spot on the hose clamps

with two hose clamps onto your barb you’re insured a tight waterproof fit with your hose clamp secured we do recommend covering up the hose clamps with some electrical tape that’ll do two things one it’ll prevent chafing of your pump wire and second it’ll prevent fraying of your safety line it doesn’t take too much so we’ll start just by doing a couple of wraps of electrical tape and then working our way up to the top to cover up all of the exposed metal this covers up the sharp edges of the hose clamps that are sticking out and makes it overall a lot easier to work with when you’re dropping the well pump down your well so that’s all you need in order to make a nice safe covering for your hose clamps

so a safety line is not required for your installation but it is recommended what this is it’s 1/4 inch polypropylene yellow cord it’s available online or at any of your big-box retail stores this is just a secondary safety measure in case your drop pipe happens to break you’ll have a second way in order to pull up your well pump all of our pumps come with two connections for the rope we can pick one of them insert it through the connection point and then tie a good knot in this case we recommend a bowline for a nice secure connection your safety line your wire and your drop pipe we’re all going to go up the well in order to keep this manageable we do recommend attaching them all together using electrical tape every about five to ten feet or so all it takes is about one wrap that’ll give you a secure connection and from here we can move on to the next spot that way everything doesn’t get tangled and it stays and a nice neat bundle

one of the best features of this system are the low water and tankful sensors they’re both the same so you can use any we’re gonna use some electrical tape in order to attach our low well sensor about a foot above our solar well pump

we can do about two wraps right above on the cord and then I can also do one wrap right around the sensor this is gonna hold it in place and make sure it doesn’t move around or get tangled so what this low well sensor is doing is its protecting the pump from running dry if the pump runs dry it can overheat and damage the motor or damage the pumping mechanism what the sensor is doing is as the water level drops in your well if you have a lower producing well as soon as it gets below this it’s sending a signal back to the controller and it’s enabling the low water well protection that stops the pump it’s no longer pumping until the water rises back above the sensor and for that point the pump will turn back on and start pumping until it drops again

with the basic set up coming off of your pump of your low water sensor your rope your drop pipe and your drop wire you’re gonna continue working your way up taping this bundle to your drop pipe about every 7 to 10 feet that’ll keep it all in a secure bundle then you’re ready to drop it down here well so you take the whole thing and basically drop it right down your well