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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Ram Pump question.
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Nickels
Member
# Posted: 5 Sep 2019 07:55
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Anyone on here have experience with building a Ram Pump? I have a Creek on my property and trying to draw water uphill 150' by using a ram pump. I found plans on the internet and gave it a try. (I thought it may have been a internet scam) but to my amazement it pumped up 125'! 125' with zero power source is mind blowing to me. lol But it is flowing with just a very small trickle. But a trickle will fill a large tank over time. But I need it to go another 25' or more. I read on the internet that some people had it going up hill 250' with decent flow. I also read I may need to extend the pipe that feeds the pump. So far I am not getting any better results. I thought I would give this forum a try. I am building a off grid cabin and as of now I have to carry the water up the hill. I will post a video of the pump and my issues on my channel as soon as I get some time. But its getting frustrating. lol Thanks for reading and any input!

Brettny
Member
# Posted: 5 Sep 2019 08:19
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Theres a calculator online. Have you used it?

Nickels
Member
# Posted: 5 Sep 2019 09:34
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No for what? To calculate how much feed tube to use for the distance? I have not but watched a bunch of online videos and a few pdfs on plans. I will google it or do you have a link? I started off with 7' and have increased it to 14'. But it seemed to be getting worse not better. Thanks for the response.

Brettny
Member
# Posted: 5 Sep 2019 11:04
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It calculates everything. I believe flow, fall and pipe sizes have alot to do with how high it can pump. Also the length of the discharge pipe dosnt really matter. Its the height change.

Brettny
Member
# Posted: 5 Sep 2019 11:11
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https://www.borstengineeringconstruction.com/Hydraulic_Ram_Pump_Performance_Calculato r.html

Atlincabin
Member
# Posted: 5 Sep 2019 15:36 - Edited by: Atlincabin
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I built one decades ago. I seem to recall that the maximum pumping distance (height) is somewhere around 10x the fall. So to get to 150' of pumping elevation you need at least 15 feet of drop in the intake part of the system, and I would guess that you may need more than the minimum given the friction losses etc. My little system had about a 3-foot drop and I was pumping water up about 20 feet with no problem.
Brettny, cool calculations! Thanks for that link.

Nickels
Member
# Posted: 5 Sep 2019 21:40 - Edited by: Nickels
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Thank you for the link! Good stuff!

Brettny
Member
# Posted: 6 Sep 2019 08:38
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They have a online calculator for basicly everything now.

ChuckDynasty
Member
# Posted: 7 Sep 2019 21:42
Reply 


Check out engineer775 on the tube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y_WWxWdn5A

Mountain high
Member
# Posted: 17 Nov 2019 10:10
Reply 


I have one works great & i am by no means a experienced or a pro at this but i read that the magic number is 7 so for every 1 foot of drop the pump will push 7 feet up hill , there are lots of youtube videos on this if that helps , i built mine completely based upon experimentation i just kept adding pieces of pipe until the pump started filling up my cisterns i have about 35 feet of 4" drive pipe then 2000 feet of supply 1/2 inch pex up hill about 100 feet in elevation to the cisterns i get about 500 gallons a day my cisterns are always full & overflow right back into the creek , know there is more calculations for these type pumps on drive & supply line sizes like i said i built mine on experimentation

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