Low Water Pressure Or Volume? Cistern With Pump Solves Problem

Low Water Pressure Or Volume? Cistern With Pump Solves Problem FARM HOME Miscellaneous 24-5-8 "Water pressure on farms is often a problem if one well and pump provide water for both the home and livestock," notes Carroll Kallevig, an Irwin, Iowa, expert in solving farm water problems. That means you might be in the shower when all the animals in the barn decide to take a drink. Then all you can do is wait for the pressure to go back up. The most obvious solution to this problem, Kallevig says, is to have separate wells for home and farm use. But that expense can be hard to justify. Kallevig has a simple and much less costly solution to the problem. Rather than drilling a new well, he helps people set up a cistern - or underground reservoir - just for the home. The cistern has a separate pressure pump that assures plenty of water and pressure . He installs a 560-gal. underground reservoir somewhere along the waterline from the farm well to the house. He uses 4-ft. dia. concrete tile to form the cistern, placing a submersible pump in the bottom to feed water to a pressure tank in the house. He notes that a jet pump inside the house can be used to take the place of the submersible pump inside the cistern. He likes submersible pumps though, since they can deliver more consistent volume and pressure than jet pumps. And you don't have the noise of the pump in the house, either. Kallevig figures the cost of this type of cistern at under $500, and might even be more like $300 to $350 if you can do the work yourself. "A used submersible well pump should cost under $100. The concrete tiles needed, including the lids and sealant, shouldn't cost more than $150 or so. That leaves a float valve and some miscellaneous wiring and plumbing parts," he says. A similar cistern and pump system could be used for periodic higher volume applications, like filling sprayer tanks, etc. Or you could build several separate cisterns for specific uses. (i.e. one for the house, another for the shop, etc.) Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Carroll Kallevig., Kallevig Pump Service, Irwin, Iowa 51446 (ph 712 782-3433).

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