Piston or submersible Well pump

I am not familiar with a piston well pumps currently available...doesn't seem like a good choice nowadays. Almost all pump these days are centrifugal impeller pumps. I am a big supporter of grundfos pumps. I use a 7S05-8.

Submersible is the best options because it is all below ground thus protected and all you have is a electric line and water line.

Are you trying to get rid of the tank or is your well not able to supply the volume if it were hooked directly up to the house?

AC converters are so efficient now that I am not sure you would want to run a DC pump.

Guessing you are a solar house with batteries. A large bladder tank or 2 might be able to keep the pressure for you over night if you don't want to run the pump off your batteries.

I seem to recall a deep well pump available that uses a bottom of well piston driven by a rod all the way from the surface (manual level pump). It was also available with a motorized top end. Slow but reliable and low power consumption. Very attractive to SHF preppers.

Thank you for your replies.

Here is the piston pump I was looking at: https://pompco.com/en/piston-pump-regular-model.php

I feel like the piston pump will be more work as I’d have to build a pump house and find a way to keep it from freezing in the winters. I just remember reading somewhere how efficient piston pumps were and we are looking for an efficient and reliable way to provide water.

The well can handle the demand, the previous owners had a small solar system but we are in the process of upgrading it to meet our needs.

My my thought was to use the old 12 volt system to power the well and use the new system to power the house.

Can I use a modified wave inverter with the Grundfos pumps? If so, would 200 watts of panels and 250 amp hours of batteries be enough for the pump? It’s a 2000 watt inverter. (I have a pure wave inverter but wanted to set it up in a small bunker for guests but if I need a pure wave for the pump it’s not an issue. )

IMO not a fan of belt driven pumps as the belts do get old and wear out or damp and start slipping. The motor shown is an open motor and usually the eventual environment in a pump house is not ideal for open electric motors with dust, spider webs and mouse poop usually getting inside the motor case. Also easier to steal and vandalize in seasonal homes.

Hard to beat a helical rotor downhole pump with integral motor that Grundfos sells except in gritty water service as no need to winterize it and its out of sight (except for the control box). I would take that over an aboveground piston pump that has to be winterized anytime. But either one should do the trick

Engineer775 on youtube does alot of well pump installs with solar and DC. I don't agree with his concepts at all....he dumps excess well water which is a total waste to me.

Dumping tons of water to shows his installs are way over sized and to me; why not use the unused solar power and send it to the house.... and thus use AC to power the well pump and send the excess to the house.....but I guess if you are off grid and with the cost of storing power it is cheaper in the long run to just buy more solar.

Any good luck. I would like to hear more about what you are doing.

I watched a few of his videos but I'm not the most handy person.

I'll do my best to explain our setup.

Our cabin is completely off grid, it would cost 120K+ to hook into the grid. So not a viable option.

We we currently spend our summers at the cabin and the rest of the year we are working out of province. We will be moving back to the cabin in the next 3-5 years and it will be our primary residence.

Currently we have 200 watts of panels, 2000w pure sine inverter and a etracer MPPT charge controller. We have holding tanks in the cabin that we fill with a generator and use a small shurflo pump in the cabin to circulate the water. it works but lacks convenience.

We want to install a larger solar system that is capable of power our lights, charge our devices (2 laptops and 2 cell phones, power satellite internet (we turn it on just when we need it), and run the well pump.

Im not keen on dropping 25K in a system right now when we won't be living there full time for at least 3 more years but want to replace the current system with one that can expand and grow as needed.

Right now I'm thinking of buying g the Midnite solar 150, 1200-1400 worth of panels and 6-8 Trojan T105. Is like to keep it a 12 volt system for now to save a bit of money and not having to buy a 24 or 48 volt inverter. Keeping it at 12 volts would allow me to use my current inverter.

I would the use the old panels, charge controller and batteries to power to well pump and some lights in and on the garage. I have a modified wave inverter I could use or pick up a new pure wave if needed.

I'm thinking a Grundfos pump would be best and would require little work to install. There is already wiring from the well to the garage, I would have to move the solar system and install the pump. Now, the question is what pump? It's a shallow well, 25 ft, static water level is 8. The cabin is 130ft from the well.

Not sure if that makes sense or not but again, I appreciate everyone's input!

Is the inverter 240 VAC? The SQE sounds like a soft start model which should help the normal start up current that a normal pump requires. I also see the SQE has a 120 VAC model. Hope it works.

We have a 120 VAC inverter. I haven't seen any 12 volt 240 VAC inverters. What would the benefits be of 240 or 120?

1300W of PV into a 12V battery = 71A in great conditions.
That much power needs a 700ah battery for safe, long term usage. A series pair of golf cart batteries ( 6V, 20ah ea) gives you 12V 200ah. 2 pairs in parallel (4 batteries) gives 12V 400ah
That's what I'd start with. Continue to run the pump with a generator . What are the specs of the pump ?

Future. Golf Cart (GC) batteries might last you 3 years, then you are ready to upsize the whole system. I'd go right to 48V for that

Thanks, Mike.

I am not sure the specs of the current pump, we were using a 3000 Watt generator to run it. I haven't decided which pump we will be replacing it with. I was hoping to replace it with one that could be run off the solar/batteries. We were looking at the Grundfos SQE 120 VAC version. It is hard to find the specs on the particular pump - or I am just not looking in the right place

Grundfos SQE 120 VAC Wow - that's an expensive pump, but looks to be smart



page 26 here, has the motor powers.

Agreed, I think I was quoted 1250 for it. If there is a cheaper option that is just as good a reliable, then I'd jump at that. I'd rather spend more money now and know it will meet our needs down the road then going through a few different pumps and ultimately spending more money.