Shallow Well and a Trash Pump

New to the forum. Lots of useful info but couldn't find a answer to my question so I decided to post up. I have a small cypress pond. Dry but the soil is soft and wet. I am wanting to flood it to with about two- three feet of water maybe twice a year and control the flow so I can manipulate the water level. This would be pond is in the middle of the woods so I need a water source. So in comes the idea of a shallow well.

I'm not asking about the installation process. Already found a good bit of info posted. My question is what size pump should I use? Is there a chance I could use say a trash pump to pump the water out of the well and flood the area? Then disconnect the trash pump. No electricity for miles.

Thanks for the help and any information.

You can do this and it can work with spectacular results. First thing-you need to be either at or near sea-level. Assuming that you are in Florida then you have that one covered. The 2nd thing is that you need a relatively high water level, like around ~10 feet. Since a centrifugal pump doesn't work exactly like a shallow well jet they have a hard time getting started or primed.

What we normally do around here is directly connect a 2" suction hose directly to the casing on a 2" well. You then fill as much water in the pump as fast as you can. You probably won't be able to fill up the casing/pump without a footvalve but you can raise the level a little. Start the pump and hope it primes/picks up. You may have to wait several minutes. Beware running your pump dry for very long as the seals etc. can burn up.

You can get a solid 30-60 gpm of water out of a correctly done set-up like this, depending on well yield etc.

Good luck.

Also I have seen some use a smaller trash pump so that a footvalve can be used, which makes it easier to get the pump primed etc. The down-side is that you won't have as much flow. I'm unaware if any gas powered jet pumps exist but it might be worth a search.

Thanks for the information. I will search around for the jet pump. I appreciate your time! Will post up when we have it complete. Thanks again.