As the economy continues to falter, we should be preparing ourselves with ways to deal with the consequences.  In other countries, economic crashes resulted in the sporadic loss of utilities, such as electric.  Most of us cannot think of living without electricity 24/7 on demand.  We expect that when we turn on the switch, the lights will come on.

Well, as someone who has endured many days without electric service during ice storms, I can say that it makes life interesting.  Many of us can heat with fireplaces, and we can use candles and lanterns for lights, and if we live in a place that has public water, we might have water or we might not.  But most of us country dwellers have no water without electricity.  We rely on electric pumps to extract water from our wells.  Living is extremely difficult without water, and so it is a priority.

In my part of the country, the water table is too far down and the well casing to small in diameter to drop a bucket down the hole and bring it up either.  In my case, my well is 250 feet deep.  So I purchased a deep well hand pump, which can pump water from several hundred feet below the ground.  Unlike the old time pumps which pull water up by creating a suction at the top of the well, a deep well hand pump pushes it up from the bottom. Suction pumps can lift water a maximum of about 30 feet on a good day.  This limit does not exist when the water is pushed up from the bottom.

The unit I purchased is called the Simple Pump, and is basically produced by two guys (machinists) in a small shop.  They have sold hundreds of these pumps all over the world, and seem to have their engineering perfected.  The system consists of stainless steel pump unit slightly less than 2 inches in diameter, which is suspended in the well by pvc drop pipe connected to a stainless steel unit at the top of the well with the hand lever for pumping water.  A fiberglass rod extends down the drop pipe to provide the mechanical action necessary for pumping water.

The pump is small enough that it will fit beside an electric submersible pump in the well.

Here is the really cool part though.  The pump has garden hose threads at the output of the pump, and the pump has a oneway valve.  The hose can then be connected to an outside water faucet, and the hand pump used to pressurize the well tank inside the house.  Then the water pumped up by hand can be taken directly from the faucets inside the house.  No need to carry  buckets of water.

I will be installing this pump in a few days with the help of my plumber.  When it is finished, I will post a picture, and describe the installation.

Got Water?