Subject: [Homestead] Tvo post- ram-pumps- April 2000
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 09:09:19 -0700
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Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2000 22:17:31 -0400
From: tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT roanoke.infi.net>
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To: "Homestead mailing list" <homestead AT listserv.unc.edu>
Subject: Time for a new posting on hydraulic ram-pumps (some new additions)
I've probably posted some variation of this posting four or five times
in the past. Time to repost it with a couple of additions, if for no
other reason that everyone with a small stream should have a hydraulic
ram-pump to irrigate pasture and garden, and to supply stock tanks so
the animals can be fenced out of your downstream neighbors water
supply---and keep the nitrates in the pasture where they will do some
good.
Not everyone has a stream large enough or with enough fall to operate a
conventional hydraulic
ram-pump. There are a couple that will operate with as little as
six-inches of head. One of them is the
Mitchell Float Pump which utilizes a common fifty five gallon barrel for
a float housing. The
construction details and pumping capacity is illustrated in Mother Earth
News, Issue #43,
January-February 1977, Page 104.
A modification of a VITA hydraulic ram-pump is also fully described in
Mother Earth News No. 155,
April-May, 1996, Page 44, made from off-the-shelf steel pipe and pipe
fittings. The clack-valve
requires mounting a tee-fitting in a lathe to machine a seat for the
valve. In another MEN issue, there is
a ram-pump made of PVC pipe which would be somewhat cheaper. (Issue
#57, May/June 1979, page 120)
This then required $58 of plastic parts---I haven't costed them out, but
I suspect the price would be the same or cheaper today.