Low GPM Well Solution

if your well isn’t cranking out 20 gallons per minute and let’s say it’s producing more like two gallons per minute we’d call that a low producing well but don’t worry a solar pump is a perfect option for a low producing well this is mike with rps solar pumps and i’m going to go over all the features packed into our submersible pumps to make them perfect for low flow water sources that can include a well a stream a creek or anything that has say less than five gallons per minute of production a solar pump is a perfect option to maximize your water production option one with a low producing well is a storage tank like you can see behind me this is a 2500 gallon storage tank storage tanks are important for a low producing well so you can pump all day when you have sunlight and store that water above ground in your storage tank all of our pump systems come with a tank full sensor so when the tank is full it’s going to automatically shut off your well pump so you don’t overflow your tank but the load producing well this is going to give you a large reservoir of water so say your cattle come up and start drinking a large amount of water in the afternoon they’re going to have that water supply available in the storage tank and then the solar pump can start up and it can take the rest of the day and the next morning to replenish your water supply so with a low producing well we highly recommend a storage tank for your water needs so now let’s head on over to our storage tank and show you how we set up that tank full sensor this is our tank full sensor the tank full sensor goes into the top of our storage tank and when the water level rises up to the sensor it sends a signal over the controller through around the 18 gauge wire that tells the controller to turn off the pump so your tank doesn’t overflow it’s super simple to install we insert it into the top of the tank and any time that water rises up it’s going to shut off the pump so it doesn’t overflow this here is a 2500 gallon storage tank they have these in up to 5 000 or 10 000 gallons capacity if you need more storage than that you simply add extra tanks next to each other and connect them at the bottom and then they’ll level out and you use one sensor in the top of one of the tanks in order to turn on and off the system the great thing is you can keep adding tanks depending on your exact water needs if you use more water and you want more storage then simply add more tanks into the future these are low cost the plastic tanks aren’t going to rust and they’re going to last you a lifetime of usage don’t worry about the pump running throughout the day they’re rated for continuous duty so they can operate 24 hours a day without overheating or any other issues our 3-inch line of helical submersible pumps are perfect for low producing wells they already produce a relatively low volume anywhere from two to eight gallons per minute we pair that with our three inch pump controller this pump controller has three built-in features which you’re going to be able to adjust in order to optimize the amount of flow you’re getting from your low producing well let’s go over those three features built into our controller that allow you to optimize the water production for your load producing well the first one is our speed the speed allows us to adjust the maximum speed the solar pump’s going to run so we can limit the maximum gallons per minute we’re drawing from the well that allows you to match the water rate we’re pumping out with the refresh rate of your well so if you’re pumping two gallons per minute but at full speed your pump is pumping six gallons a minute we can turn that down to around forty percent and that’s gonna reduce our flow rate to around the two gallons per minute in order to match what’s coming out of our well that allows extended pumping where we could pump throughout the day say six or eight hours and optimize the amount of water we’re drawing from our low producing well the second feature is our timer dial our timer dial matches up with our low well sensor so this is especially important in a low producing well we put our low well sensor about one to two feet above our pump and if the water drops below that sensor it’s going to shut off the pump and then it’s going to wait the amount of time we set on our dial to allow the well to refresh before we pump it down again the dial can be set from 0 to 30 minutes depending on the refresh rate of the well and how fast you’re pumping it down for really low producing well we’re probably going to set that at 30 minutes and then throughout the day every 30 minutes that pump’s gonna fire up pump down our well and then turn off and just cycle and do that over and over again but you don’t have to worry about the cycling we have slow start built into all of our pumps and so that’s perfectly fine to cycle on and off throughout the day it’s not going to shorten the lifespan of your pump the low well sensor goes hand in hand with our tank full sensor how we’re going to hook that up depends on our exact configuration and what we’re pumping into

so you pump the water from your low producing well into your storage tank now you need to use that water if your stock tank is located right next to your storage tank then you can hook the two together and the water will flow from the storage tank into the stock tank you’re just going to lose a little bit of capacity based on the height of your stock tank now if you need to pressurize your water there’s a couple of different options the first and recommended option is gravity feeding from your storage tank with that we need to locate our storage tank above vertically above where we’re actually going to be using the water there’s a conversion for the pressure you’re going to get based on the height of your storage tank and that’s we’re going to get one psi for every 2.31 feet of vertical distance so if you need 20 psi say for your stock tank with the float valve in it or for drip lines you’re going to want to locate your tank around 45 feet above where you’re using the water at that will give you about 20 psi if you’re going into a household or need higher pressure needs say 45 psi on the lower end 70 psi on the higher end we’d want to go with around 105 feet of vertical lift or greater depending on the exact pressure you want to achieve if you’re in a flatter region and you don’t have hills or other mountains around where you can locate the storage tank higher vertically don’t worry we have other solar pump options for you to pressurize your water the first is what we call the tpp that’s the tankless pressure pump we have a couple of great videos that go over the complete system but this is a surface pump that’s going to take the water from your tank and pressurize it it’ll produce around 20 gallons per minute at around 40 to 45 psi if you’re not having a pump up a hill then that’s a great option for all your watering needs whether you’re going into a household or you’re going into a stock tank or even directly into drip lines if you need a little bit more pressure then you’re gonna have to go with something like a submersible pump and a pressure tank in order to stabilize the pressure of the system if you’re putting a submersible pump in your tank and using that to pressurize your water you’re going to need a couple of extra components one being your pressure tank the pressure tank is going to stabilize the system and it’s also going to store water so you can have high flow pumping even when your solar pump is only recharging at around 5 gallons per minute we recommend getting the largest pressure tank you can afford and the lower end would be on the 40 to 60 gallon range but we’d recommend going bigger than that say 100 or even 200 gallons of pressurized storage a large storage tank is going to achieve a couple of things for us first you’re gonna have a lot more capacity of high flow so if you have somebody water in the yard while somebody’s taking a shower nobody’s gonna be impacted even though our solar pump is only pumping a couple of gallons per minute the second thing it does if for some reason your batteries die then it’s going to provide that high flow storage until they can be recharged the following day even with a large system you can make a decision whether you want to use batteries or not if you’re not using a lot of water you can make sure the system is pressurizing the tanks during the day and then just limit your water uses at night if you think you’re doing a household or you’re going to be using a lot of water in the evening then it is smart to add batteries to our systems all of our submersible pumps the three inch line are compatible with batteries we can simply add on the battery banks and that will provide pressure 24 hours a day your typical water usage for household is going to be around 50 to 100 gallons per person per day so you want to take that into consideration when you’re sizing your pressure tank so that’s the basics on sizing your pressure tank with that system you’re going to need a couple extra components you’ll need some stainless hardware and you will need a reverse action pressure switch the reverse action pressure switch is going to tell the pump when to turn on and off depending on the set pressures those are all available from rps solarpumps.com so if you’re doing a pressure system feel free give us a call we can help size everything and make sure you have all the components you need in order to pressurize your water supply so i mentioned batteries in a pressurized system let’s go into that a little bit more in depth so in general when we’re pumping into a storage tank or into a pond or other free flow applications we don’t recommend adding batteries to the system batteries don’t magically add power to our system what the batteries allow is allows us to shift our pumping time around whether we want to use our six hours of pumping slightly early in the morning or later into the evening or even into the middle of the night that’s what batteries allow us to do they don’t magically allow us to produce more water out of a normal producing well if you’re doing a pressurized system and you want the pressure at night like i mentioned you are going to have to add batteries so the batteries can store that power and use it to repressurize your tank for water usage in the evening in general when we add batteries for applications like that we’re also going to want to add solar onto this that’s going to provide us additional power so if we’re pumping during the day we’re still going to have that additional power to be stored in our battery bank for night time operation we have a lot of great videos that give an overview of our battery systems and how to hook these batteries up to your universal pump controller the universal pump controller is compatible right out of the box with batteries whether you use them or not you simply hook the batteries up and it takes care of the rest and charges them and make sure it cuts off if the battery voltage is getting too low since we’re talking about low producing welds there are a couple of cases when adding batteries to your solar pump system is actually going to produce more water than not having it and that is when you have a low producing well so we just came out with a system called the low and slow what that’s going to do is that’s going to add a bunch more batteries and a lot more solar panels it’s going to maximize the water production for your low producing well you’re going to have to mount the additional panels and hook up the additional batteries to your controller and in that case we actually add an external mppt charge controller to take care of the charging the batteries and the management of it so the controller can focus on running the weld pump for that 24 hours if you need one of those systems and you have a low producing well and you want to maximize production it’s a great way to make sure you’re getting the most from your well the low and slow is going to come with up to 16 extra panels and 16 extra batteries in order to make sure you’re pumping continuously throughout the evening just a bit of warning so all of this depends on the pumping head and the volume of water you need a pump from your load producing well we’ve sized it for around three gallons per minute at a hundred feet of pumping head which is a nice general number to achieve 24 hours of pumping if you have higher pumping head or higher flow rates then that’s going to possibly reduce the amount of pumping you’re going to get over a 24 hour period but don’t worry we’re able to help size we can take your specific application and try to estimate exactly how much water you’re going to pump and you can always start with a smaller low and slow pumping kit and add on batteries and panels to make sure you achieve the amount of water pumping you need per 24 hour period and your water usage there are lots of applications where you might need to pump water from your low producing well hundreds or even thousands of feet across your range or ranch land in those cases we have plenty of options for you with high flow and high head or distance capabilities just recently we helped a customer with over
five miles of lines running across his ranch land we paired it with a much larger pump we also took in frictional losses we were going to experience from pumping those long distances the longer you pump the more frictional loss that’s pressure required to push that water through the pipe there’s two ways we can overcome this we can go with a higher pressure pump like say our gb booster which is a surface pump that can achieve high pressures or our pro system which can also do high pressure pumping at high volumes the other way we combat this is with larger diameter pipes the larger diameter the pipe is the more flow can go through it with the less frictional loss if this sounds a little confusing to you don’t worry give us a call we have free consultation with our pump sizing experts who do this all day long they’ll help you figure out how far you need to pump what diameter pipe you need to run and at what pressure you need to run that which will dictate which solar pump you’re going to use for your farm to get that water distributed out to all of your livestock or other water needs so those are the basics of how you can maximize production from your low producing well or other low producing water source if you need help sizing your system feel free to give us a call at 888-637-4493 we have pump sizing experts standing by they’ll walk you through the entire process starting with the planning of your system trying to figure out how much water your well produces and then to your exact application in which pump system you’re going to need you can also visit us at rps solarpumps.com and figure out what system is right for your low producing well