Low rate, looking for recommendations

I am in the country at end of city supply. On good days, I measure 40 psi with a rate of 13.6 GPM at the meter, 150 feet from house. Looks like 3/4" pex entering house with most inner house plumbing 1/2" pex. At the bath tub, I measure 37 psi with a rate of 3.2 GPM. At one of the side outside spigots, I measure 39 psi with a rate of 3.8 GPM. If the city needs to work on their wells, I have seen the pressure drop to 20 psi and the water has very small stream (don't know the rate). What I was thinking of doing was installing a shallow well jet pump (1/2 HP) and 50 gallon bladder pressure tank and check valve. I think I would like to get the pressure in the tank to be around 60 psi, hoping that will boost the rate to the various fixtures (4 bedroom, 2 bath house). 1) Does this seem like a reasonable design, 2) Do I need a cycle stop valve, 3) I have been seeing bad reviews of HD and Lowes products. Where can I get better quality pump and tank? Thanks for any and all of your insights.

http://www.berryhillirrigation.com

http://www.growerssolution.com/page/GS/PROD/CycleStop/csv1z

http://wellwaterinuse.com/cyclestopvalve-csv1z.aspx

http://www.wwpp.com/products/wellaccessories/wellaccessories.htm

http://www.willeywelldrilling.com/results.php3?cat=CYCLE+STOP

http://www.johndeerelandscapes.com/_Products/Irrg_wellpump.asp

http://www.roguevalleypump.com/pages/whatwedo/pumps/cyclestop.html

http://www.schaeferbrospump.com/constantvalves.html

http://www.ballardwaterwell.com/

Here are a few places to get you started.

SSWremodel said:

I am in the country at end of city supply. On good days, I measure 40 psi with a rate of 13.6 GPM at the meter, 150 feet from house. Looks like 3/4" pex entering house with most inner house plumbing 1/2" pex. At the bath tub, I measure 37 psi with a rate of 3.2 GPM. At one of the side outside spigots, I measure 39 psi with a rate of 3.8 GPM. If the city needs to work on their wells, I have seen the pressure drop to 20 psi and the water has very small stream (don't know the rate). What I was thinking of doing was installing a shallow well jet pump (1/2 HP) and 50 gallon bladder pressure tank and check valve. I think I would like to get the pressure in the tank to be around 60 psi, hoping that will boost the rate to the various fixtures (4 bedroom, 2 bath house). 1) Does this seem like a reasonable design, 2) Do I need a cycle stop valve, 3) I have been seeing bad reviews of HD and Lowes products. Where can I get better quality pump and tank? Thanks for any and all of your insights.

Click to expand...

You can't have a pump sucking and pumping more water (gpm) than the city and you seriously undersized 7/8" OD (3/4") PEX tubing provides. And as we see, it goes very low to nothing. So I'd suggest a 200+/- gal atmospheric storage tank that is easy to clean and sanitize, a 1/2 hp single line jet pump to suck water out of it, a foot valve on the pump's inlet inside the tank or a check valve outside the tank, a small bladder tank and a CSV.

If you decide to go with a cistern type tank, a submersible pump in that tank will out perform a jet pump of higher horsepower.

If you just want to add a jet pump, tank and check valve, your pump will cavitate like crazy trying to draw water through that small pipe from the city. Once the tank empties, you probably won't have any more pressure than you had without the pump.

Couple of things: I think I have a 1-1/2" or 2" PVC pipe to the city. It just changes over to 3/4" PEX as it enters the house. Also, I don't really have room for a large tank that you suggest. My new system will need to fit in a 48" x 30" x 8' tall Utility Room. Am I understanding you right that if I pressure up a tank to say 60 psi, that I won't be able to get a boost in rate at my shower ( up from ~3.5 GPM) even for a short time? Sorry if these questions seem dumb, but I am a newbie at this?

That doesn't give you much room does it? I don't think 2" or 1-1/2" is standard for city water. Unless you have a commercial building, that would indeed be odd. If you do have that size inlet from the city all the way to the street, a pump might help a bunch. In order to boost pressure, you must be able to get more water to flow by creating a vacuum on the inlet pipe. If there just isn't any more water available, there will be no boost.

If you put a pump, check valve and say a 42 gallon equivalent tank in the closet, you would have around 5 gallons of usable water before the pump would come on again and the tank would be empty. That's two minutes in the shower. And the pressure will drop from it's high setting (60psi?) to 40 psi while the 5 gallons is pushed out by the tanks precharge.

If it were possible to get more water from a large city pipe, you could go with a flow switch instead of a tank and pressure switch - check valve system. One gpm flow or so would turn on the pump and the faucet being closed would shut it off again.