Water Pumps

Water pumps, what do I need a water pump for? This may well be what you are saying and you may not need one. If you are happy to use a watering can or you can set up a gravity feed system as you garden is lower than your water barrel then fine, skip this page.

However, there are many of us who need water pumps to pump the water to a different storage space. In my case, this is two additional barrels at the top of my garden near to my greenhouse. From here, I can water my garden and the vegetables in my High Density Garden. I either use a watering can or a gravity feed system using a hosepipe.

So, how do I pump the water up to the top of my garden? Well I use a submersible pump. This is a pump which is placed in the bottom of the water barrel which collects the water from the rain diverter. It has a long power lead which is sealed against water getting in, an outlet pipe and something called a float switch. The power lead and outlet pipe should be self explanatory but the float switch may need some explanation.

The float switch floats. As it does so a tilt switch inside points upwards and creates a circuit allowing the submersible pump to pump water. It will keep on pumping water until the level begins to fall below the pump. At this stage the float starts to drop and this will eventually cause the tilt switch inside to tilt. This then shuts off the power. It does this so that the pump will not try to pump when there is no water in the barrel as this protects the pump. Common sense really.

There is no real reason why you could not use a submersible pump for use in an ornamental pond, the type of pump which powers the fountain and the waterfall, but they are designed to run continuously and in any case tend to be more expensive.

My submersible pump will pump particles up to a quarter of an inch in size but I only get a small amount of grit and dust from my house roof so this is not a problem for me. Paying more will buy you a pump which will cope with larger particles but do you need this.

Whatever pump you buy make sure it has the power to pump the water to the height you need to. I have to pump water about 20 yards underground to another water barrel but this is only a little higher than the first barrel, about 6 feet so that is what my pump has to have the ability to do.

Whatever you buy make sure you observe electrical safety where you live as water and electricity are a dangerous combination. Always get a qualified electrician to put any permanent wiring in place or just be careful like me and only plug the pump in when you need to use it, but use some form of protection device. In the UK we use RCD sockets for safety. If in doubt consult an electrician.