On 03/05/2015 21:24, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sun, 03 May 2015 21:13:17 +0100, Vir Campestris
wrote:

My experience is with much smaller distance to the water. I sail boats,
and there's a saying "The best pump is a frightened man with a bucket".
We have a few small pumps for getting water out of the bottom of boats.
When there's only a few cm a bucket wouldn't work; but they seem to need
a lot of effort for not much water.

With only a few cm, a dustpan can be a more effective baler than a
bucket.



When we lived outside Hastings we had a borehole that we got our water
from, together with rainwater.
It went into a large underground tank under the garage, it was then
pumped up to tanks in the loft either by an electric pump or if there
was trouble with it then with a rotary hand pump like those shown here..
https://www.drain-systems.co.uk/pump...ary-hand-pumps
Easy to use and shifted water quite quickly.
David @ a rainy side of Swansea Bay