We live in South-West North Carolina. Our well is 1000' deep, and limited production (1gpm). Our pump is a 3'hp submersible. We do have a very large accumulator to help us keep household water.

If we lose power......

Is there any way we can bring water up and use it at the surface?

I don't know of any hand pumps which will work. And, you'd have to pump a lot of the time to make up for our small production.

Solar? What would it take for this? And, what about cloudy days?

I'm wandering if we're basically screwed on this project......

Any thoughts you have well be welcomed.

 

Hand pump is definitely out.
At 3hp, you are looking at a pretty hefty power draw. A reasonably powerful generator would be the only solution, and even at that, you may not be able to run anything else when the pump is running.

 

.


Explain this "accumulator".....are you referring to your pressure tank?

If so.....then what you can do is add an indoor storage tank.....I have (2) 200 gallon tanks. I have a second pump that draws water from the tank to supply the house with water pressure. This actually would then solve your low flow situation as the well pump simply needs to refill the tank at it's leisure.....24/7.....controlled by a float switch. This ensures you will always have an ample supply of
water regardless of what the well can actually deliver in real time.

You would then have no problem running the smaller house pump off a generator during a power
outage as the pump would only need to be 1/2 hp

And.....if you don't have a generator....you could just simply draw water from a shut-off valve at the base of the tank whenever the power goes out. If water was needed upstairs then you could even rig a small hand pump to that or you could hook up a small battery operated pump.


.

 

You guys are totally right!

What I didn't say, and should have said, was if our power outage is three weeks or so.........

That's what I'm trying to prepare for.

 

1000ft deep well with a 3 week outage.... hand pumping might get you some water after that long.
Halton's suggestion would resolve most issues, and would help short term.

What current draw does your current pump list in it's specs?
A really rough calculation makes it look like just over 30A for that size of pump (at 240V). A decent Genny might be enough to get by, but do not run anything else when the pump is running.

How often are you without power for a week or longer?

 

We haven't been without power. We're in a Co-Op, and they have good service.

I'm looking forward to times we could be. Storms, etc are common now, and leave large power grids down for awhile.

Trying to figure out what water options we have with long term power outage.

The problems we have is:

*depth of well
*low gpm

 

I'm suprised you have such a deep well in FL. I would have thought the water table would be reasonably high through out the entire state (bare in mind, I'm 2500 miles north of you and only visit the area a few times).

I would suggest looking into Halton's suggestion. That should help with the low gpm in the house.
If your well wasn't so deep, I would say a piston pump as a backup might work. My antique backup pump has an external motor and is belt driven, so in a pinch, I could run it off a smaller motor or even manually. Don't think it'll work with a deep well however.