House and Garden Watering with a Solar Pump

Most farms and rural retreats do not have access to town water and rely on tank water or water from a dam or creek. Very often people in these situations use dam or creek water for their gardens and tank water collected off the roof for domestic use. Both these applications are ideal for a solar pump in providing free water courtesy of the sun.
The big advantage of a solar water pump over wind mills is that when water is most needed in summer days are longer with more sunshine, whereas with windmills wind does not necessarily blow at that time.

For domestic applications the diaphragm solar pump is the ideal choice because it can supply up to 34 litres per minute with an automatic cut off switch which cuts out at 40 PSI. It is advisable to also fit an air tank to the solar pump to avoid the annoying sound all night of the pump cutting in and out if there is a tiny leak in the system.
The compressed air in the air tank delays the pressure drop with leaks and avoids the solar pump switching on and off as frequently. Even for large houses only two 90 watt solar panels are required to keep the battery charged to provide water for at least 4 hours per day which is more than ample.

For garden applications it is usual to use a submersible solar water pump at the dam or in the creek or bore.
The ideal situation is to pump the water with solar pumps into a tank on a stand or hill above the house and gravity feed to the garden. In these situations batteries are not required with the solar panels being directly connected to the solar water pump via an inverter which converts the direct current into three phase alternating current.
Flow rates up 150L/M and heads of 100 plus meters are possible with solar pumps.

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