inside water storage

[busted knuckles]

Hi everybody. If i was to go off grid, i am looking at a well with a hand pump that would pump to a tank inside the house, in a loft.  Using gravity at the sinks and toilet. Anyone have any experience with this? Or point me in a direction to find out more?

[rick91351]

http://bisonpumps.com/ manafactuare a huge aray of hand pumps from simple shallow well models to those that lift water hundreds of feet.  To me ideally you would use a pump in the house so you would not have to go outside in the winter storm to pump your tank full because you forgot or _____.   I don't know if that is possible but I found a link explaining what they need to know - http://bisonpumps.com/hand-pumps/

Of course I am not spamming this product.  Don't have any ties to this product.  I just have heard great things about it.   

[busted knuckles]

Thank you. I will check out the links. I was looking at "simple pump" looked well made. But about 1300$

[rick91351]

Problem to me is the old days of a $35 pitcher pump is gone....It would not work in your application anyway.  But anytime you lift water it is expensive.  We have a spring runs to the house but then pressurize it.  We are on grid.....  That little extra cost us about $1500.....   

[hpinson]

A review of my experience with the Simple Pump is here:

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=10231.75

Going on 4 years in an outdoor, fully exposed, alternate hot/ cold weather application, so I have a very high opinion of it. The pump is super high quality and bulletproof.  Pricy, but worth it in terms of quality and support.  It works great for shallow wells, but shines on deeper wells. Mine is 300 feet.  Maintenance of a Simple Pump deep well application after a number of years is costly.  That probably would not be the case for a very shallow well, where you can easily do the work yourself.

My understanding is that the Bison pump is similar in quality, and in short and long-term costs.

[MountainDon]

  Using gravity at the sinks and toilet.

Gravity flow is very slow w/o a good head. The formula is distance from water level to point of use level X 0.43 = PSI.  A toilet will take 'forever' to fill and a shower will be nigh on impossible. IMO, the use of a pressure pump like one in an RV is well worth the effort and cost.  That would also mean the tank doesn't have to be in the attic with the weight of 8.33 lbs per US gallon bearing of the ceiling joists.

[busted knuckles]

Thank you for the replies. I will look into the the pressure pump. I suppose gravity alone might be slow.

[Dave Sparks]

Hi everybody. If i was to go off grid, i am looking at a well with a hand pump that would pump to a tank inside the house, in a loft.  Using gravity at the sinks and toilet. Anyone have any experience with this? Or point me in a direction to find out more?

It could work if #1 you do not require a high wife acceptance factor. The second thing is to oversize the pipes from a 10 foot elevated tank down to your fixtures. They do this in Mexico and after some time,  they use a pump.

Use the pump!