Ok, so today my girlfriend had assembled a crew of Thais working with water-drilling. After giving some stuff, like money, rice, cigarettes and a bottle of Lao-Kao to Pii, they started to drill for the precious water. After a few hours and 22 meters down in the sand, they finally found water. They then showed down 12 meters of 4" PVC pipes which they had made a lot of diagonal cuts to let water seep through. In this pipe they then lowered 12 meters of 2" PVC pipeline. In the submerged end they attached a filtering thing, to avoid big pieces of whatever is down there, to go into the pump. I was very sceptical to all of this since I have always learned that a ground level pump at 1 atmosphere should not be able to suck water higher than about 33 feet (theoretical limit, but in reality much less). I am here with a former plumber from Norway and he also told me this was basic knowledge when he went to school.

After a little assembling they then swithced on the pump and it pumped water, allthough not very quickly and the water escaped the hose attached very slowly. Maybe filling a liter of water in about 15 seconds. All this they said was due to the fact that they had not permanently sealed the pipelines, and this was evident by large bubbles forming in the pump and exiting the hose. The bubbles formed was around 1 cubic cm. I tried several times to ask my girlfriend if it maybe was too deep making the pump struggle to work. But as usual they just give you a look, saying "what the hel_l does this idiot alien think he know about anything, this is not whereever you come from so let us do it our way) and then saying they had recently drilled holes down to 60 meter and used a normal pump to extract water from that.

I'm not sure how they have done this. But certainly there must be a reason why it works. I think the waterlevel must be much higher down there in the PVCs than the 12 meters of PVC they put down there. I insisted that we didn't pay anything before we could prove this works for several days, but after a lot back and forth and "guarantees", I payed up.

Anyway, what experience do you have with this? This is a brand new, pretty big, automatic pump from Mitsubishi, and I was expecting a lot stronger output than this. Also I am going to connect it to a 1500 liter watertank that is placed 2,5 meters above ground to at least give some pressure if the power goes out. I am also worried that the pump is struggling a lot more than it should and that this can significantly reduce its lifetime. What do you guys think out there?

Moved to DIY forum.

Ok, thanks!

You can get what is known as a jet pump in Australia, this has what looks pretty much like normal centrifugal pump at the top and 2 pipes going in the bore hole, one has water going sown from the pump and is normally a little smaller the 2nd pipe. The way it works is the water going down enters a venturi device at the bottom of hole, this then sucks in water and allows much higher lift than the normal restriction you mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eductor-jet_pump

However the jet pump is not very efficient for pumping large amounts of water, the ideal solution is a submersible pump, this is a long cylindrical pump that goes down the bore with the electrical cable going down to the motor at the bottom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submersible_pump

Go to Farming section and go thru the borehole thread and other threads if of interest, and your questions, concerns, etc will be answered forthwith. Reference static water level, check valve, pump size, pump type, etc.

The Mitsubishi probably not going to cut it. Is it the 405 series. You will probably need a pump like a Franklin in the bore & use the Mitsubihi to drive the water from the tank into your house. If you get a 1.5 Franklin you will have pressure (if it is a good borehole)

like a firehose- but after it goes into a holding tank you will still need a second pump. Slapout has the right suggestion. The farming forum is where I got the info for using the Franklin pump & a secondary to the house.

We are going to use the jet pump type, brandname Hitachi model DT-P300GP(PJ). PJ stands for Parallel Jet. I am quoted a price of 8300 THB, in Nong Phai, about 300 km north of Bangkok.

url : http://www.hitachiconsumer.com.my/home/DT-P300GP.asp

url : http://www.hitachi-th.com/hitachi_new/prod...ameEn〈=

and then there is the pump of brand Lucky Star model ?, see thread http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Lucky-Star-D...mp-t175193.html

regards,

Leo

We are going to use the jet pump type, brandname Hitachi model DT-P300GP(PJ). PJ stands for Parallel Jet. I am quoted a price of 8300 THB, in Nong Phai, about 300 km north of Bangkok.

url : http://www.hitachiconsumer.com.my/home/DT-P300GP.asp

url : http://www.hitachi-th.com/hitachi_new/prod...ameEn〈=

regards, Leo

these are toys. add another 6,000 Baht and get a 1hp submersible pump which is doing a proper job.

I will be interested to hear from you on the final outcome of what pump you use to draw water from this borehole. It sounds like the pump may be strong enough and it may also be too strong as the borehole you mention is not too deep and its possible the water supply in this bore will not keep up with the pump and you will end up running the hole dry. Just a thought