Client Story: Hermit Pad Solar Pump System

[The Simple Pump has been this client’s sole source of water since 2002.]

Hello,

This setup has been in since 2002. It is the sole source for the water at my “Hermit Pad” in the mountains east of San Diego.

This remote site would have required a large investment in electric lines to power the well. I started shopping for a small, low capacity pump where I could use a modest solar set up. The recovery rate of the well was tested at only six gallons per minute so I didn’t want to over-pump it. I settled on Simple Pump because it was ‘Right Sized’, used high grade materials and was well thought out.

The well is a six inch casing, three hundred feet deep, static level at thirty feet, recovery rate is 6 gallons per minute. The pump cylinder is at 80 feet.

In the end this project was a fun dinner-table engineering exercise. The pump works about three hours per day most of the year. It pumps to a storage tank about three hundred feet away. The tank serves a small studio apartment. When the tank is full the overflow is gravity fed to a drip irrigation system on an orchard.

This was a good solution for the application. In something like seven years of use, the pump has performed fine.

Best regards,
Jamul, CA