shallow well pump & plumbing in mountain cabin

We have a cabin near Mt Rainier which we are bringing into the 20th century. We have brought in electricity and are now working on hooking up a pump to have running water. We also are going to hook up a water heater to have running HOT and cold water.

We have a Pacific Hydrostar 1 HP Shallow Well Pump that I picked up at Harbor Freight. We have a hand-dug well that is 20+ feet deep. We have had a pitcher pump mounted on the counter for water for 40 years, and drain it in the winter. There is no check valve at the bottom of the incoming line.

Our original plan was to mount the well pump under the kitchen counter along with the water heater, however, the pump manual says to disconnect the fittings and turn it upside down to drain the pump! This seems awkward at best. So the thought now is to mount it on a platform under the cabin just above ground level where there is plenty of room.

I was wondering if we could mount the pump on the platform with a hinge assembly and connect the pump input and output with some sort of flexible pipe installed with some drain valves at the fittings so all that we would have to do to drain the system would be: turn off the water heater, turn off the pump, open all the faucts, open the drain valves, and then tip the hinged pump assembly to drain the lines. The water heater has the fittings on its side, with the cold inlet on the bottom, so it would drain, too.

We will only have one kitchen sink, two hand sinks, two hose bibs and of course, the hot water tank. The outhouse is still down the path...

Would this type of pump mounting work?
What type of "flexible" line can be used at the pump input and output?
What type of line would be recommended for plumbing? Copper? PVC? or ???



Any other insights, ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I think you are over engineering the problem. Use a union on the pump outlet and the inlet youcan loosen the clamp and remove the pe pipe. Then drain as usual.

Peter-
The idea is to make the draining of the pump easy and not have to unscrew pipes, unions, or anything. We generally drain everything when we don't use it during the winter months, but hook them up when we need to use them, so it won't be only a once a year occurence.

What is a pe pipe?

There is a pipe that goes from the tank with the air bladder to the pump. Do I need to disconnect and drait it there, too?
Thanks.