DELIVERING STORED WATER

Delivering water to a piping system from storage provides the advantage of a fairly constant delivery rate because the elevation of the water source varies only slightly compared to the 100 foot variation you could get with a deep low yield well. Also, you get more bang for your buck because all of the pump’s horsepower will go into delivery since none is needed to lift water from the well.

If equipment is to be installed in an area that is not noise sensitive, jet and centrifugal pumps may be used to pressurize and deliver water. When equipment is housed beneath or adjacent to living or working areas, submersible pumps can be installed inside of storage tanks using our PumpChamber™ system. PumpChamber™ turns any 4” submersible well pump with a Franklin motor into an end suction pump so all but 4” of stored water is usable.

OR you can use our Herculan ConstaBoost™ System mounted to a wall adjacent to or above the storage tank to draw water from storage and deliver it to the end use under constant pressure. These two trademarked systems are patent pending and can provide whisper quiet service while delivering high flow rates and pressure. Herculan Systems deliver constant pressure while PumpChamber systems require a Constant Pressure Module to provide constant pressure.

Delivery rates to 25 gallons per minute, in noise sensitive areas are usually provided by a single pump system. A PumpChamber connected to a pressure tank or Constant Pressure Module or one of the Herculan SS models is used. For flow rates above that we prefer multiple pumps staged so that both run when one pump can’t maintain system pressure. Dual pump systems are furnished with or without an alternator that changes the lead pump each time the system starts so that one pump isn’t doing all the work.

Multiple pump systems are sized so that one pump will not deliver peak demand flow rates. That way if one pump fails the system will function but building occupants will notice that pressure is lower than normal and have someone investigate. The hope is that people won’t wait until both pumps fail before looking into the problem.

The constant pressure feature provided by the Constant Pressure Module or the Herculan ConstaBoost System can provide a luxurious shower or keep the spray pattern of your irrigation system the same shape and radius so that everything is properly watered. Either of these pumping options can deliver performance similar to that expected of a city water supply and provide flow rates which will enable the building plumbing and irrigation systems to operate simultaneously without the performance of either suffering.

Constant pressure delivery systems are designed so that the delivery (pressure) pump will run as long as water is being used. The table above shows that all of these systems deliver 1.5 gpm @68 PSI. This is done so that the pump will not cycle with a single lavatory faucet open and so that once the faucet is shut off, minimum run time can be provided using a small pressure vessel.

When dealing with low yield wells, it is extremely important that there are no leaks in the distribution system. When finding enough water is difficult to begin with, you certainly can’t afford to waste water. If there is a leak on the pressure side of a Well Manager® system larger than 1 gallon per minute, the delivery pump will not shut off. For this reason, even small leaks are easy to detect. This can save a tremendous amount of water over time.

For instance, one contractor installed a Well Manager in a private school. Once the system was turned on the delivery pump would not shut off until the main building valve was closed indicating there were leaks somewhere in the system. The plumbing system was thoroughly inspected and all of the leaks were fixed. There were quite a number of dripping faucets in the bathrooms and a couple of outside faucets were found leaking. The leaks that were found added up to about 1.46 gallons per minute. That doesn’t sound like much until you do the math. A 1.46 gallon per minute leak wastes 2,102 gallons per day, 14,716 gallons per week, and 765,273 gallons per year and fixing it saves that much. There are people living on wells with a yield much smaller than 1.46 gallons per minute.