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MtnGoat - I've been lurking to see where this thread goes because I've never installed one of these pumps. I did study them when the "self sufficiency" movement was really big in the late 70s, early 80s and I've seen one in place/working. When MEN (Mother Earth News) was first being published (here in Hendersonville NC before they went bankrupt and got bought out by the MSM) they had a demonstration farm and this was one of the technologies they encouraged. (If they had just kept their politics to themselves I might still be a subscriber.) I've kept the books I collected back then (and some of them have started being reprinted with updates). The issues I discovered during my research are all site specific. #1 - There ain't no free ride. Most setups will require some type of impoundment to stabilize waterflow and ensure sufficient head (perpendicular drop in the water column) to function correctly. (Check out low-head micro hydro powerplant design while you're researching alternative/sustainable technologies.) The charts on your web sites are the same as what I've got in my library. #2 - Under ideal conditions, pumping efficiency is 10%. The higher you want to lift the water or the lower the head you have to start with, the less you can lift. The 150' - 600' heights you read about have high heads, high flow rates (or both), and (very) low pump rates. If you're lifting high enough the input side may (probably will) cycle more than once before it builds enough pressure in the air tank to "squirt" a water impulse out the supply side. #3 - The system is intended to function with surface water. Since wells are (should be) sited away from potential sources of contamination I don't know if it would be worth the effort to move well water. Any potable water system would probably require filtration/purification at the top of the lift with a tank and a gravity distribution system. We (3/7) did this several times in the 80's in Latin America. Chimore Base Camp comes to mind (used an electric well pump and a tower w/tank). The team before mine set it up and did a good job. All we had to do was maintain/expand it. Don't forget friction when calculating pipe sizes and lift potential.
Good job digging up the weblinks. The sustainable/permaculture/environmentalist groups have a lot of useful information that is still being developed. Another place to look is with the CA units on Bragg. I got my copy of the "Village Technologies Handbook, Volume 2" from a team mate who swiped it from a CA contact years ago. Their library should still have a lot of that stuff. A lot of stuff was compiled by USAID, VITA (Volunteers in Technical Assistance), the Peace Corps, and various missionary groups in the early 60's. Much of it has been forgotten/lost in favor of installing generators, electrical grids, pumps, etc. Unfortunately that's what the locals have been conditioned to expect by poorly thought out US aid programs. In my (admittedly not recent) experience, the indig actually demanded the "high tech" (BTW - unsustainable) solutions. I still remember pissing off a bunch of "do-gooders" when we described ourselves as "Peace Corps With Guns". Way too much fun jerking their chains. Nice thread, I hadn't thought about most of this stuff in years. Peregrino
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