Last night I had the opportunity to be on the Jeff Rense show. I had a great time talking to Jeff about our products and some other preparedness topics as well. While we were discussing water preparation and backup Jeff asked me whether or not I had setup a backup electrical power for my well pump. What Jeff didn’t know is that this is on the very top of my preparedness list. We bought 2 shares of gravity feed irrigation water that delivers tens of thousands of gallons over the spring and summer months. This water is obviously an excellent backup but what about the fall and winter months. One project that is on my list will be to build a cistern to store some of that water during the winter but it is still in the planning phase. Like I told Jeff, I do have a few 55 gallon drums and some other smaller containers stored but I consider this to be a short term emergency water supply.
This last winter we did experience a few power outages, one for more than 8 hours. It ended up being a great family day where we got to use some of our backup heat and cooking gear and play cards and other board games. However this made me consider what my priorities should be this year and a backup water system is the obvious priority.
After looking into some options and doing some research I discovered this deep well hand pump that can fit inside my current well casing. Its called the simple pump.
There are a bunch of features that I really like about this pump:
- It fits down my current well casing so I wont need to have another well drilled.
- It can pull water using only hand power from up to 350 feet.
- There various factors that determine flow, depth supported, required effort. You can see the details here.
- One of the best features is that you can actually pump into your pressure tank. Most people who have a electrical well pump setup also have a small pressurized tank that holds the water pumped from the well. Once the tank reaches a certain PSI inside it signals the pump to turn off and stop pumping water. This water in the tank is now pressurized and can be pushed through the houses plumbing. Basically this hand pump allows me to continue to live in my house and enjoy having running water even without the grid power being available.
- Another feature that I like is that you can buy a small solar panel backup and small motor custom built for this unit. If you set this up you wouldn’t have to be pumping by hand all day long.
- Easy install. The site claims that most people can install this themselves if they have some level of knowledge about wells. While I’m sure that is true I have decided that I will pay an expert to install this for me so that I wouldn’t disrupt my current pump setup in anyway.
For me and my specific situation this is the superior choice for a well pump backup system as it can used in almost any situation. I am saving my pennies to be able to purchase one!
Chris













