plantkiller wrote:
Just thinking of trying an idea and would like some opinions.


There is a stream right off the back of my house, about 50 feet
away.....stream is normally about 6 - 8 inches deep but swells to 8 - 10
feet high during severe thunderstorms.

We've had a drought in Maryland for the past several years (who hasn't)
and have had water restrictions in place....(still have even during a
very wet spring).

If I placed a 5 gallon bucket in a hole in the stream, punched holes
high in the side of the bucket, allowing it to fill with water and
using landscape fabric around the bucket holes to filter out debris and
sand. Running a hose to a sprinkler or sprinkler system...

Would this setup work and what type of pump (electric) would be most
suitable for drawing the water up through the hose and creating enough
pressure (15psi with a regulator) to keep the sprinklers working.

Note: the stream is too far away for convenient electrical access so
the pump would have to draw water through about 35 feet of hose.

Looking to keep this very "temporary setup on demand type of operation.


Your thoughts ??? Thanks !!!!


I'm not gonna get into what's legal and what's a good idea, etc. I think
you need to forget about the bucket. Get a small "dirty water" centrifical
(sp?) irrigation pump. They are pretty cheap. Run a suction line down to
the creek and have a strainer on the end to keep the crap and most of the
dirt out of it. You might can tie a cinder block to the end of the suction
line to hold it down near the bottom. Then use sprinklers that can pass a
little dirt and sand. You don't need a regulator.

You need to make sure the pump has sufficient "lift" to draw the water up
from the creek to the pump. This has little to do with the length of hose
and everything to do with the elevation. If the vertical distance from the
creek to the pump is more than about 25 feet, the whole idea falls apart
unless you get a gasoline or diesel pump and locate it down by the creek.
And I don't think garden hose will be rigid enough to use as a suction
line, because it will probably collapse. You can probably use cheap black
ABS plastic irrigation pipe.

You'll probably have to prime the pump to get it started, so allow for
that. The pump will have pipe threads for the inlet and outlet, and you
need hose thread for the garden hose. So use some kind of tee fitting with
a screw-in plug before the hose adapter so you can pour in a bucket of
water to prime the pump.

When you run the sprinklers, you will be advertising your system to any
nosy neighbors and police who might be enforcing the water restictions.
Just keep that in mind.

Good luck, and best regards,
Bob

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