Topic: Water Well on site?

[HAHA Rep]

We need to construct a well for water on our site, but have no electricity. We’d appreciate knowing other sites who have this problem and how they’ve overcome it. Particularly interested in types of well and hand pumps used.
thanks
Hungerford Allotment Holders Association (HAHA)

[Unwashed]

Hi there.  I've been following the developments at Hungerford and I'm really pleased you've got your plots back.  I'm at Wash Common and although I'd love our site to be self-managed the Town Council are dead against it.

In the 40's a couple of plot holders dug a well by hand and I think they just used to pull buckets up on a rope.  The well's not there any more though.

Our council have been making noises for a couple of years about a well and wind-powered pump but I'm not convinced that's the way to go.  Wind power is mostly available in the winter when you don't need the water.  Solar power is the cheapest renewable and is available just when you need the water.  I did some preliminary analysis and came up with this:

Use a small pump to lift the water from the well into some kind of surface resevoir.  This can be a bunch of inter-linked butts - IBCs hold 1000l and are pretty cheap on e-bay.  A lot of the energy is used lifting the water so if you make the resevoir big enough you can run the lift pump only when the sun shines then you save on the battery bank.  Provide troughs around the site fed from the resevoir tank.  Use 1" MDPE pipe to minimise the resistence.  You'll probably still need another pump to fill the troughs from the resevoir as there won't be enough head for gravity feed and this will need to run when the sun's not shining so you'll need a battery bank as well.  Alternatively hand pumps in place of the troughs might work.

The cost of the system depends on how much water you need to supply, but when I sketched out some costs it looked like you might possibly start saving money in five years compared to metered water.

I think the project is really interesting.  I'm more than happy to write up a detailed costed proposal if that's any help to you.

I suggest the best place to start is to specify your requirements:  so whether your users would be happy to hand-pump, whether they need to use hoses, how far they can walk to a trough, how much water they might reasonably be expected to use, and how much work they are able to put into the project themselves.

How had you thought to dig the well?

[goodlife]

In our site we do not have "running water"...we do have several wells though..those who wish to use them have their own petrol powered pumps (about £200-£300 to buy) and they have layed network of hoses which are running in hedge bottoms out of way..out of 80 odd members there is only about 6 who have them, some have been seen getting water out of well with bucket and rope but I think that is only if and when butts have dried out ::)..that haven't happened last few years ::)
Majority of people have resulted harvesting rainwater..we have got a supplier for large storage tanks..white square ones with metal cage around + tap....and we have been selling those to members for £10 per tank ;D

[Auntie J]

Hi,
I am part of a team that run Nursery Lane Allotments in Uxbridge Middlesex we have a well, a Honda petrol pump, and sited around the area of the plots water tanks with a cistern ball cocks. Pipes were fitted by our digging team,and laid about 2' down.

The water is pumped up to a very big tank and runs down into the various smaller tanks when full the water is cut off, just like filling the loo. When we manage to get hold of the old metal cold water tanks we just add it on and pipe it in place.

Every member is required to have a minimum of 2 water butts per structure, in the winter when there is more water and wetter weather, we let members top up the tanks.

Hope this is of some use to you.

Regards
Joanna