[Sodman]

Hi there!

I did a couple quick searches for "watering lawn from lake" etc - I found multiple posts for water in hyd, water in crankcase etc.

But not much on this:

I have a well, so I tend not to want to sprinkle alot. But I do have a creek on site, how can I water the lawn with it?

Doesn't have to be buried, or pro installed. I envision (this is simplistic) tossing an $89 sump pump in the water, attached to garden hose / manifold that splits to 25' hose + sprinkler and a 50' hose + sprinkler. Plug the pump in, and go.

Too many choices at the store: Water / sump / cast iron pumps, with varying gpm. I guess there needs to be a few calculations? Would a utility pump with 2000 gph go through 50' of garden with enough pressure for a couple sprinklers?

Or is this too much trouble for the payback? Depending on time of the year, leaves and debris are in the water, if a leaf gets through the strainer + plugs the sprinkler - and it takes an hour to clean out it, this would get old quick

Do any of you water your lawn from a lake or river?

Anyone have ideas?

 

[Sodman]

I just saw DrabM's post "pump water from and old well" that sounds similar - perhaps I'll try that

$88 utility pump at the store

 

[X758]

I would say the best thing would be to figure out how many sprinklers you want to run, what the gallon per minute requirement is for each one and at what pressure they need. Plus you will have to figure in your friction loss through whatever length hose you use. You will need extra pressure capacity to compensate for that. I would probably buy more pump than you think you need so you aren’t disappointed.

 

[coaltrain]

We watered our garden from our river for many years. Just a small 2 stroke water pump and about 200' of hose and it worked great.

All you have to do is calculate the lift (how high the water needs to me pumped vertically) and the length of the run. There are calculators all over the internet to do this. Once you have your GPM (gallons per minute) and pressure requirements just pick a pump from a favorite vendor.

 

[JimR]

Too many choices at the store: Water / sump / cast iron pumps, with varying gpm. I guess there needs to be a few calculations? Would a utility pump with 2000 gph go through 50' of garden with enough pressure for a couple sprinklers?

Keep in mind that different pumps have different purposes. Sump pumps aren't designed to build pressure. Many will release water back into the sump if there is much of any back pressure at all.

But you can easily do what you're talking about with a shallow well pump or utility pump.

Utility pumps will often only list maximum head they can push water to (as opposed to PSI). If you multiply the max head in feet by .433 it will give you the rough max PSI the pump can develop. (For example a pump that has a max head of 45 ft can develop a maximum pressure of 19.5 PSI at the pump's output,)

 

[RodW]

Depending on time of the year, leaves and debris are in the water, if a leaf gets through the strainer + plugs the sprinkler - and it takes an hour to clean out it, this would get old quick.

A friend of mine who pumps from a shallow creek kept trying different things to keep leaves and pine needles from clogging the intake screen. An old guy at the hardware store told him to reverse his thinking and bury it (sort of like a French drain) rather than clean it. Of course, we do have sandy soil here.

 

[RalphVa]

The neighbor put in about a 1 1/2 to 2 inch poly line buried and run up the hill (100 ft up) to, I guess, a tank up there somewhere. He just a quick connect connection that he puts the discharge onto. Think he used a surface pump with a suction he throws into the creek. Pump would have to put up 45 or so psi. Think he pumps at about 50 gpm. Has lots of landscaping.

 

[stevenk]

This is from harbor frieght. Pump, pressure tank, and pressure switch. Just need a suction line into water source, a line out to your sprinklers and some electric 1 HP Stainless Steel Shallow Well Pump and Tank with Pressure Control Switch - 950 GPH

 

[Poppi]

After I retired from my full time job I did a lot of handyman jobs. Around here, that soon included many summer homes on our many local lakes. Folks all use pumps like these Sprinkler Pumps. They also include a pressure tank on the outlet side. A standard foot valve with some screening wrapped around keeps the leaves out. Just a suggestion.

 

[etcallhome]

Tried 3/4 hp sump pump, in my younger days , I could have water going further than the water from sump pump. I think it produced around 10psi.

Took the 3/4 sump pump back , and I bought this

Little Giant® Select Series™ 1/2 HP Cast Iron Shallow Well Jet Pump

3/4 HP Cast Iron Shallow Well Jet Pump

www.menards.com

I have a foot valve, 25' of sump pump 1 1/4" hose and a 3/4" shut off valve. Works great to water our garden from the creek behind our house. I'm using a 4400 W generator to power the pump.
I think when I get my 2nd check from Menards I will buy a pressure gauge, , even with out the gauge it works great.

 

[Jimmy Walker]

How far is creek from power source? You could have too much voltage drop on your line to run the pump unless you have a heavy gauge wire or a couple of transformers.

 

[Sodman]

GREAT ideas!. The creek cuts through the corner of my front yard, so it's close to the lawn. But house elec outlet is probably 60 to 75' away. I have a 12ga ext cord....

 

[rwmeyer]

Voltage drop is determined by amp load and distance. Applying/drawing a full load of 20 amps, you'll have 7.7 voltage drop in a 100' #12 cord. If 10amps, 3.8 voltage drop. No clue as to how much lower voltage will damage anything though! Bob

 

[dixie460]

IIRC the voltage drop for a motor should be less than 3% lower than the voltage at the source. This is for steady state running at rated load. On startup you'll see a significantly higher drop as the motor will draw up to 6x it's normal current. Unless of course you're using a reduced-voltage starter, variable frequency drive or star-delta starters, but nobody would use any of that just for small irrigation pump haha. I am not sure what max allowable voltage drop during startup is, but a quick check of the NEC may get you an answer.

 

[grahamk]

Job #1 is checking the legality, because it is probably illegal and if they catch you they probably won't be nice about it. These days they tend to walk creeks that have a lot of green stuff growing nearby that they can see on satellite imagery (ie: a well watered lawn), and in my state they do not need a warrant unless they want to look in a building, or start digging. Just a couple of things to keep in mind. Not legal advice. They are looking for pipes going from shore into the creek - easy enough........

I have used a lot of pumps - the flotec sprinkler pump is still my favorite - but it does like to drive more than a couple of sprinklers and if you only hook up 2 sprinklers to it the result might not be what you hoped for. Same with the red lion. These things work better when they are driving a lot of sprinkler heads - a minimum of 6 sprinkler heads is what they are designed for.

For smaller jobs like you are describing it is hard to beat the "Wayne PLS100". Attach a 5 foot PVC pipe to the front with a 90 degree turn that goes 2 feet straight down. Prime and go. If you are careful about how you pull it out you can go all summer without needing to prime it, or you can buy a foot valve if you can have a permanent placement depending on Job #1. ;-)

I use an "action machine 32 mesh filter" in between the pump and the hose that goes to the sprinkler. That'll solve your leaf problem and it's easy to clean out.

Good luck! particularly with Job #1!!!

 

[JimR]

Job #1 is checking the legality, because it is probably illegal and if they catch you they probably won't be nice about it.

$2 says you are from somewhere west of the Mississippi River. 🤣

Those east of the Mississippi live in states with riparian water rights. IOW, if surface water flows through or over land you own, you have a legal right to any reasonable use of that water.

States west of the Mississippi usually apply "prior appropriation" doctrine to surface waters. So water rights are often controlled separately from the land the water flows through.

 

[grahamk]

$2 says you are from somewhere west of the Mississippi River. 🤣

I'm not going to take that bet. ;-)

 

[OLYTDI]

Yeah, where I live, you couldn't get away with pumping water out of "waters of the state" which includes basically everything short of a installed pond (and even that if fed by "waters of the state"). All of the surface water here is owned collectively by the state residents and one must have water rights established to divert it.

 

[KHodges]

Do any of you water your lawn from a lake or river?

Anyone have ideas?

I used to water my garden from a nearby creek with a system the previous owner had cobbled together. It worked great, but finally the generator failed from age and I never replaced it. The system was like this:

The creek was at the bottom of my pasture, about 200 yards from the garden area. The previous owner had dammed the creek and made a small pond, about 6 feet deep and maybe 25 yards long, with the dam being about 25 feet across. In the dam, he built a small well, using timbers to line it. It had a pipe connecting it to the pond, so pond level was the water level in the well. The well helped keep leaves and other trash out of the pump.

In the well, he put a 110VAC submersible well pump, would supply about 20 gallons/minute. From the pump, he ran a 2" ABS pipe up the edge of the pasture and built a multiple outlet head for it from hose bibs, mounted to a post at the edge of the garden area. Down at the pond, he had poured a small concrete pad and had a 3000 watt gasoline generator to power the pump, kept it covered with an old washtub to keep the rain off.

The pond level is about 50 vertical feet below the garden level. At the head of the waterline, he attached three garden hoses, and each of those fed 4 rotary lawn sprinklers in a line, which was 3/4" PVC pipe, and the sprinkler heads were elevated about 4 feet off the ground. So, 12 sprinklers for a garden area about 120 x 65 feet. It made sufficient pressure for the sprinklers to throw about 20 feet each. With it running, the garden would get muddy within an hour. The guy was a retired USAF NCO and loved to fool with stuff. I felt it was overkill, but I used it because it was there, for the first three or four years I gardened. I don't irrigate any more, never saw the need, considering how well my garden does without supplemental water.

I think the gizmo below might be a viable option to the system I had, just power it with a small gasoline generator rated high enough for the motor. For simplicity in delivery, if your ground has the right slope, you could "flood irrigate" rather than using a spray system, by just letting the water run in trenches down through the garden area.

View attachment 789558 This is from harbor frieght. Pump, pressure tank, and pressure switch. Just need a suction line into water source, a line out to your sprinklers and some electric 1 HP Stainless Steel Shallow Well Pump and Tank with Pressure Control Switch - 950 GPH