Pumping water off grid

One of the most important things anyone can have anywhere is a good, clean source of water. It's needed for humans but also for animals, and even gardens. We're going to try using rainwater or gray water for gardens and for flushing the toilet, but now we have a way to pump fresh, clean, cold water right out of the well that's already on our property.

After searching online, and doing some research, we settled on this particular submersible well pump. The price was reasonable and within our budget. I bought it off Ebay and it had free shipping. We already hooked it to a battery to make sure it worked, then dropped it down into the well about 50 feet, using pex pipe to connect to it to deliver the water out of the well.

Awhile back, we had measured where the water level was and found it to be at 22 feet. The extra 18 feet puts us down far enough to stay in the reservoir of water. We have no clue how deep the well actually is.

We secured the pump well with some rope that doesn't rot, and tied it to a couple of nails in the wall of the little pump house. We also laid out the amount of pipe we'll need to actually take water from there to the cabin. Next, we'll need to dig a deep trench to put the pipe in, maybe running the pipe through some PVC or something for extra protection.

The pump has a 230 foot lift, so we've got plenty of decent pressure to take care of fresh water needs. The maximum immersion depth is 100 feet, so we're good there.

Here's a picture of the pump itself.

And here's a video about the installation.