Driving a well in cattails ?

I live on a small lake in Michigan, and was planing to add a sprinkler pump to pump water from the lake. But this time of the year with over half my neighbors pumping out of the lake the lake lever is down about 20". I have a hard time in my mine adding another pump. Between my grass and the lake I have about 50' of catttails.
Would it be possible to drive a swallow well at the edge of the cattails, and add a 1.5 hp. sprinkler pump?

You would be better off running a 2" pipe out to the water with a foot valve at the end. You can a roll of 2" poly pipe, or you can buy or make up 20' lengths of 2" PVC and connect then with Dresser couplings or unions or Fernco couplings.

Put the end of the pipe in water as deep as you can and run the pipe so the elevation rises continuously from the inlet to the pump. That rise keeps you from getting a bubble trapped in the pipe.

garyl said:

I live on a small lake in Michigan, and was planing to add a sprinkler pump to pump water from the lake. But this time of the year with over half my neighbors pumping out of the lake the lake lever is down about 20". I have a hard time in my mine adding another pump. Between my grass and the lake I have about 50' of catttails.
Would it be possible to drive a swallow well at the edge of the cattails, and add a 1.5 hp. sprinkler pump?

Click to expand...

I am obtaining water from a creek. My cottage is about 125 feet from the creek. I ran a length of 3/4 inch poly hose to the water with a foot valve on the end. The hose end is suspended with a weight from the underside of a log anchored to the shore and stream bottom. This ensures that the foot valve is not resting on the stream bottom where there is a lot of organic sediment but remains constantly about 18 inches below the stream surface. The log floats to compensate for a fluctuating watewr level. I am using 2 12volt shurflo pumps which I power by a solar charged battery. The pumps turn on automatically when the tap is opened. I do not filter the water for outside use but I have installed a RIO 2000 Dalton filter on the line to the household sinks. The system works well but my porcelain filter clogs up on a weekly basis during July and August with algae. I use this system to water small vegetable and flower gardens. I have also used a gas powered pump on the system which pumps a higher volume of water per minute but is not as convenient as the solar system.

Bob NH & rogapl are both right!

Depending on if you are going to use this sprinkler pump for sprinklers or not or if you are going to need more than 40 psi pressure, You may need to use a single stage or multipal stage jet pump to get pressure.

The diameter of the suction line depends on the gpm you are going to pump.

The floating intake is a good idea.

However forget using dresser couplings; unions or Fernco couplings. I'd use belled end PVC pipe.