Gas powered pump thread..

[BACKCOUNTRY]

What has led you to believe you need a trash pump for a mountain stream?

I'm not sure what farmers in your area use to pump their water, but here in Oregon we use conventional pumps for irrigating out of our rocky/sandy bottom streams, they are not unlike the one in your pic. No one would use a trash pump.

The idea is to not let the rocks get in the pump, why go buy a pump that can suck the rocks? Why has my pump lasted so long?

Nothing personal man, I just wanted to pass on some knowlege. take er easy!

 

[Fast Pine]

alot of weight and power is used to do a job you don't need to do, why haul the extra weight.

The extra horse power allows me to run a 2'' hose versus a garden hose..I can move a whole lot more water, quicker..Exposuer time will be down to a minimum..Hence helping out the saftey of my plot..

The extra weight is worth it, it allows me peace of mind that my pump wont get damaged by drawing up stream water.

 

[Fast Pine]

Hey man, nothing personal, our different experiences have led us to different conclusions, good luck man

OK..It was a good conversation..Thanks for yer time BC..

 

[PazVerdeRadical]

The idea is to not let the rocks get in the pump

and this can be done very easily; you just gotta dig a hole and allow river water to enter it smoothly; so you make a little artificial pond that is deep enough to allow your pump's hose in it without danger of sucking up debris.

70lbs pump to back pack can be a pain in the ass, unless you are planning on leaving the pump out there. then it's all good i guess, just one hard heavy hike.

i am loving the idea of a water pump.

thanks bc and fp!

peace

 

[cadillachydro]

bro, you don"t need anything elaborate... backcountry has your back on this one, more than you know, i can tell...

More hp is more noise. more noise is more attention attracted. We all know what more attraction is.

As far as contaminants, fabricate and attach some sort of floating device for the end of the suction tube. Maybe attach a foot long piece of "pool noodle" or foam insulation pipe used on water lines. Zip tie it around the suction line about 6 inches from the very end to keep the intake floating a few inches below the waters surface.

If you're still worried about contaminants, attach some sort of filtration device at the end as well...maybe something from a pool supply house or something.

Point being it seems you are making things much more difficult and expensive than it really needs to be.

Low key, simplicity and effectiveness are what you need to focus on. Overkill and complication kept out of the equation. Everything else is just technique, good luck whichever path you choose. Keep it easy ~caddy

 

[Fast Pine]

More hp is more noise. more noise is more attention attracted. We all know what more attraction is.

NO..Thats not true..My pump is run off a lawnmower engine..The smaller pumps are run by little shainsaw, and weedwacker engines..

IMHO, shainsaws are alot louder and much more high pitched..

Point being it seems you are making things much more difficult and expensive than it really needs to be.

Damn it..I have a tendency to do that when it comes to guerilla growing..but I dont know about expensive..My pump was real cheap..

 

[Fast Pine]

70lbs pump to back pack can be a pain in the ass, unless you are planning on leaving the pump out there. then it's all good i guess, just one hard heavy hike.

When I saw it on the computer, it was advertised at 30Lbs..So the original plan was to pack it in and pack it out..Now, after seeing that its twice as heavy, I just may take one loooooong hike and stash it in the brush near the garden, away from the stream side..

I still may decide to pack it in and out of the valley, but if I do, I will only have to go about four times total..One watering for every month of growing season..2 waterings with some Grow big, and 1-2 waterings with some tiger bloom..1 watering with clear water to flush nutes.

 

[cadillachydro]

dude, hondas are among the quietest engines made...Honda takes pride in that, being eco-friendly as possible. Check the add again, they are 4 stroke engines, not 2 strokes like a chainsaw. Ive been arond many small engines and hondas are by far the quietest and most reliable. Trust me on that one, but do your thing.

 

[cadillachydro]

ps... and if you look closely, hondas already got your debris problem handled... it comes with a pre filter deal on the end of the hose. If you ask me, and just about everyone else here, thats your man. No way your lawn mower engine is quieter than that thing.

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/popup.asp?xml=/data/popup/wx10_HondaMini4StrokeEngine_name.xml

that says it all right there.

 

[Fast Pine]

Check the add again, they are 4 stroke engines, not 2 strokes like a chainsaw.

I stand corrected..

I still think that the smaller engines will be louder than the lawn mower engine..Not by a whole lot..but I would guess that the highpitch of the small engines allows the sound to carry further. What do you think caddilac?

 

[Fast Pine]

ps... and if you look closely, hondas already got your debris problem handled... it comes with a pre filter deal on the end of the hose. If you ask me, and just about everyone else here, thats your man. No way your lawn mower engine is quieter than that thing.

http://www.hondapowerequipment.com/popup.asp?xml=/data/popup/wx10_HondaMini4StrokeEngine_name.xml

that says it all right there.

all that link said, was "Incredibly quiet"...That doesent say alot...I think the add for my pump said the same thing.

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

NO..Thats not true..My pump is run off a lawnmower engine..The smaller pumps are run by little shainsaw, and weedwacker engines..
IMHO, shainsaws are alot louder and much more high pitched..

You mean C-H-ainsaw I think?

The Honda pump I have endorsed here is not a 2 cycle engine like a chainsaw or weed eater, it uses a true, shrunk down 4 cycle engine. It will not whine like a chainsaw or a weed eater.
The compact pump the dealer showed you must be Homelite brands equivelent pump, which is a 2 cycle, and does have a chainsaw like whine.
Simply using a muffler meant for a slightly larger engine should help alot for noise reduction should that be a concern.

*Wikpedia link to 2 cycle engines*

*Wikpedia link to four-cycle engines*

The Honda WX-10 is the Caddy of Guerilla water pumps, its like they designed it for us. Its light, powerfull, quiet, and more than adequete for any reasonable sized op.

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

Another thing I have to point out, is that in a situation where you are going to be feeding a established irrigation system, the idea is to keep debis out of the system.

With that trash pump you will be sucking up rocks, sand, twigs, etc., and sending them into your system with some force behind them. Where is all that trash going to go? You should be dicouraging trash from getting in the system.

EDIT: I reread your opening post and noticed you won't be directly driving the system with the pump, but you still should be keeping debris out of your resivours as well, or the system they feed could become plugged. :EDIT

This is why most people who use irrigation pumps in "wild" sources of water use a fine mesh screen(usually in the shape of a cone) over the end of the suction head. Most pumps are supplied with a screening device that is specificly designed to not allow particulate bigger than that pump can handle to pass into the system.

A trash pump is designed specificly for pumping chunky water, not just because the water you happen to be pumping has some debris in it, but because you want to pump up the chunks too.

When I was younger, my dad was a general contractor, we were working on a rental house that had a backed up sewer system. We dug a deep hole to expose the pipe burried 6' below the ground, tree roots had blocked a long section of the pipe.
We busted the pipe open cuz we had too in order to fix it. The large hole immediatly filled with several weeks worth of raw sewage, and was not going to empty any time soon.
We rented a trash pump to empty the hole, we used a trash pump because we wanted to suck all the turds out of the hole along with the water, this is what you use a trash pump for.

When you are needing to pump water, you don't want to be pumping anything else, you want to use a water pump with screening protection. When you need to pump turds you use a trash pump cuz you want to get the big stuff too.

 

[Ganico]

If it's a fast moving river, I think you could maybe use the pumping mechanism from some of the small windmill waterpumps, but on a little waterwheel instead.

It'd be a lot easier to carry in, and would require no fuel. It'd also be silent.

 

[scrappy2]

Ok ! I think we should all listen to BC 23 years of experience useing a pump to do what we need. Any one top that? If not humble yourself and listen...please! BC what about hand pumps....? I once read of a pedal pump! I wont need to mve more than 50 gallons at a time!

 

[Deft]

So why do you need these pumps anyways? Do you have a tube going from a water source all the way to your plots?

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

scrappy2-Back in my Overgrow days, I was very into the guerilla irrigation thing, water supplys have nearly the importace of security in my grows due to my hot dry summer climate.

During that time I looked high and low for effective hand driven or foot driven pumps, any type that worked by human power. I had a hard time finding good examples online.
Captain Skunk suggested a hand operated Bilge pump for boats that worked with a plunger(Bass pro shops and Cabelas carried it I think). Its hard to tell how far uphill you could push water with hand operated pumps, it could be a challenge.

Here is a link to Bass pro shops hand operated bilge pump- Hand operated bilge pump

I had a idea of trying to build a plunger driven hand pump out of PVC pipe, the plunger part would be easy, building the check valves to help keep the water flowing the right direction would take a bit of thinking, I never really put much thought into it since I had other ways of moving water, I should finish a design, it might be cool.

I also thought about driving a pump with foot power, the problem with that would be making it compact enough to haul in a backpack. I had a few ideas to build one, but again didn't follow through, I'll try to remember a few of the ideas and get them posted.

I'm really a fan of small electric pumps if you dont have much to move, and not far uphill. There are many 12volt pumps out there that can work for moving limited ammounts of water.
The cheeper types would be the small (boat) bilge pumps, these usually cost around $20 and up, the only problem with them is that they are not designed to move water uphill, how far up they could push it is hard to tell, being able to move 500 GPH to 1500 GPH(or better) I am sure they could do some uphill.

Here is a link to Bass pro shops Bilge pump page- Bilge pumps

Another option would be the Shurflow pumps, these are pretty high quality pumps designed to be used in RVs and camper trailers, I grew up with a water system using a early version of it, and I know for a fact they will push alot of water pretty fast over 75 feet in elevation or better. They run around $60 and up.

Link to Shurflow manufactuers website- 12 volt Shurflow pumps

Link to one available online- Shurflow pump for $59.13

Powering these pumps in the bush can be a problem, your best option for a lightweight battery would be a small Motorcycle battery, they should provide enough power to fill a reasonable sized resivour, say 50 to 200 gallons. You would figure on the battery getting completely discharged on each use and would need to recharge them. After a seasons use the battery would be trash, these batteries are not designed for repeated complete dishcharge, but they should do the trick for one season.

 

[scrappy2]

Thank you for the knowledge BC! It would take any of us that are new to pump's years to figure out what you have learned the hard way.

 

[Guest]

Besides..I was at the honda dealership, and the service guy started one up for me...Its just as loud as a chainsaw...
.

I bet the guy at the dealership was running that pump dry which is about twice as loud and a lot more high pitched then running it full of water .

Im guessing this is kinda a backyard type project your planing on burying a 2inch pipe all the way to your grow thats a big project by itself if i was you i would build a pump house an just leave the pump there . Ive been using the wx10 in a mountain stream for a while without problems.

 

[Fast Pine]

Hi everyone..

I went back to the honda dealership...Poked around..Asked some questions, and ultimately ended up talking to one of the managers.

He had personal experience with the WX-10. He told me that the pump has a plastic propeller so any hard rocks that get into the pump will ruin the blade, and greatly hurt the performance..He said the idea is to make sure that no rocks get into the pump, and the yellow strainer isnt enough to keep the pump safe..He told me to wrap the strainer in a fine mesh, a little wider than a window screen..Mount it to the top of a metal stake..Drive the stake into the stream floor, right in the middle of the swift current..Have the strainer 6-12 inches under the surface..This should keep any rocks from getting into the pump..

He basicly backed up most of the things that BACKCOUNTRY has tried to drive into my thick scull..

After some deliberation with Ms. Pine, on how we were gonna budget over the next month or two to afford that bad boy..We decided to upgrade..

May I introduce the newest member of the Pine family..







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