power outage no water......

[68Charger]

yes it is a stupid frost free valve can i retrofit one of those old school hand pumps??? i just dont like the idea of no water if shtf....or during a power outage.....i think our well is like 500 feet im actually out in ellicott area not in cs if that helps i have no idea what level our water tables are

Sorry if I wasn't clear before, I was speaking from experience on wells in Colorado (my father has a well in Washington state- he's got like 6-8' to water)

a quick search found this:
http://www.simplepump.com/OUR-PUMPS/Flow.html

you can check the water table level with a small weight, fishing bobber & enough fishing line to reach the water (line will go slack when it hits water)

A generator, or a DC-powered pump & solar array (and batteries) would also keep you in water during an outage... during some nasty winter storms, I've been without power for more than 3 days- gotta have something as a backup

[jerrymrc]

As posted in the link above you are not going to hand pump past 300' or so. Most wells out there are 300'+. Since most of the wells out there are 220V I would find out how many amps your pump draws.

Then I would think about a generator that will supply those amps and have it on Propane. You want propane because of the fact you are not going to use it that much and infrequently. A conversion is $150 or so. You will not have to worry about gas going bad and the effect of it sitting in the carb. Propane stores forever.

When the power does go out you run the generator for short periods of time to supply water. This is something that has to be explained to most of the family members. 1/2 hour 2 times a day to do dishes/take a bath and pour drinking water is more than enough. Running this way a 3500W would take a week or so to run through a 30lb tank. http://www.propane-generators.com/

You need a to have a way to change over the power source and the ideal situation would be to have a large enough pump shed to house the generator and tanks. along with the current pump.

Just some thoughts.

[Wulf202]

You can hand pump at pretty deep depths, you just cant prime that deep. There's valving a well company can build for you to add a hand pump and keep your prime from the electric.

Also there's some older wells in CO that are at about 125' depending on age and location it's possible...