Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with pump

Is there such a thing as a silent pump for an indoor fountain?

x46 — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:33:13 -0800

Is there a silent pump for an indoor fountain? Things that hum drive me slowly mad. Is there a pump for a small table top fountain or fogger which does not hum? Of course all the ads for pumps say they're quiet. Ha! Not so! I had a small aquarium years ago and the pump did not bother me. I'm assuming it was a better quality than what comes with your average fountain kit. But, a table top fountain moves a lot less water so I don't know if an aquarium pump would be overkill. Any suggestions other than to add the fountain to the garage sale? I hunted all over the city for this fountain, have it and now can't use it.

Count the pumping events

Xhris — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:43:17 -0800

I need to count how many times a sump pump runs in a given period. The sump pump pumps water out of a hole on the ground, it is activated by a float switch - so generally speaking it pumps the same amount of water out each time it runs (the volume of water from the top 'on' level to the lower 'off' level). I want to know how much water is being pumped per week/month/whatever. I figure that since the pumping amount is (approx) the same each activation, if I knew how many times to runs (and it's about 4-6 times per day) I can work out the total pumped amount.

Is there a sensor or method you can suggest to do this?
Or to measure the pumped water volume directly maybe?

I'm on a tight budget, so I've been thinking of 'no-cost' solutions like balancing something on the pipe (which vibrates alot) or listening for the sound with a laptop set to record, but I hoping the hive mind can come up with a brilliant idea for me.

Thanks.

Jet pump troubleshooting at the cottage

saraswati — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:56:31 -0800

Help! We're at the cottage and we're having problems with the jet pump system. We installed a new jet pump and we're not seeing enough pressure to reach prime. We checked the intake line and it's filled with water and doesn't appear to have any holes. We also just installed a new foot valve. What else should we be checking? Help us get water to our cottage!

Will a funnel in a river pump water?

cmchap — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:57:16 -0800

PhysicsFilter: The Setup: a 3 meter hose with a 1 millimeter interior diameter is attached to the small end of a funnel with a 1 meter maximum diameter and a 1 millimeter minimum diameter. This assembly is submerged in a "quick-flowing river" with the large end of the funnel facing into the current (so, "on its side"). The free end of the hose is raised 10 centimeters above the top of the funnel and this happens to be above the water level as well. The Question: Theoretically, will water come out of the raised end of the hose? If so, what is the equation that will let me input the rate of the "quick-flowing river" get the rate of discharge from the free end of the hose? I ran this past my engineer father, and he past some of his engineer friends. We have differing opinions.One of the engineers is pretty sure that Bernoulli's Principle will come into play.

Are there examples of this kind of "pump" in the real world? I'd imagine they're VERY inefficient.

Should a hot water pump be this noisy?

damn dirty ape — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:33:22 -0800

Should a hot water pump be this noisy? I just moved into a new space and noticed a loud noise coming from the utility closet. There's a black pump mounted on top of the water heater making this noise. It runs for a few minutes at a time after I use the hot water for a bit. Im guessing this is the recirculation pump.

This thing is loud. Several times louder than the main HVAC fan. More than Im comfortable with. Is this normal with a pump like this? Ive lived with water heaters in the unit before but dont recall ever having this problem. Thanks.

Pool Filter... filter. "Incomplete" prime?

rocketpup — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:57:09 -0800

Replaced Jandy CJ200 cartridge filter with new Jandy SFTM22 sand filter. Pump pot no longer fills completely with water. Possible reasons? Contractor malfeasance? This weekend my Jandy CJ200 shot its top half many tens of feet into the air for unknown reasons. We had just cleaned the cartridge like many times before and had restarted it. The pressure release valve was definitely open.

Whatever the reason for this event, we simply decided to buy and have installed a new 22" sand filter, the Jandy SFTM22, which is apparently a renamed Hayward due to some recent corporate acquisitions.

Our pool service installed the new filter and left, but the pump never primed, and we couldn't get it to do so using the normal methods. Note that we have a Jandy JHPU1.0 1 HP pump.

So we got the pool service out again today and they managed to improve the situation somewhat, so that the water level is higher in the pot, and completely covering the inlet pipe. They say they did this by sealing some leaks, but that to fix it completely they need to replace the diffuser. We did backwash the filter, but it is brand new and the water was perfectly clear. There is no pressure release valve on this filter, not that I know if it needs one. It is currently operating at 23 PSI, and has been since it was installed. No idea if that is normal since it is brand new.

Note that the pot filled just fine when the CJ200 was in operation.

So I have a few questions:
1) Can the pump/filter just be operated this way as long as the water completely covers the inlet pipe?
2) Could this be considered a normal consequence of switching to a new filter? Maybe the new filter is easier to pass water through?
3) Could excess pressure in the system damage the diffuser without noticeably damaging anything else except for the old filter?
4) Could this have been caused by the contractor during installation?

Thanks for any help!

Pumping water with batteries

kamelhoecker — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:45:22 -0800

Small pump. For liquids. Battery powered. Inexpensive. Does such a thing exist? I've been searching for pumps and haven't found much available. I've found several pumps for garden fountains, that are basically a small paddlewheel on a fast motor that flicks water. Far too inefficient for battery power.

I've found homebrewers making their own peristaltic pumps which could be shunk down.

Any other simple homemade pump designs or sources for cheap pumps?

Help me open my Clean & Clear face wash!

pulled_levers — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:14:29 -0800

Help me open my Clean & Clear face wash! My face wash comes in a container with a pump, like a regular hand soap dispenser. To prevent accidental spilling, the pumps are twisted down onto the container. I've been able to get these pumps out and working for other things but for some reason, this pump just won't unlock. Agh!

Is there any special trick that you use to get these pump things open?

Thanks!

Noisy shower pump in dead of night

tulipwool — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:52:55 -0800

Why is my shower pump suddenly starting up when the shower is off but hot water is used elsewhere? Can it be stopped? The pump was installed about 18 months ago when we had a shower room added. It's in the airing cupboard with the hot water tank. It was always noisy, but worked fine. Lately I've been hearing it start up for just a second when hot taps are turned on and off, which seemed odd but wasn't a problem. Then yesterday we had our kitchen sink and taps replaced, and using the hot tap afterwards I could hear the shower pump pulsing on and off very quickly. I got it to stop by turning the tap on and off again and hoped the problem would sort itself out. Then at 3am the washing machine turned itself on and the shower pump began to pulse, waking us up. It's never responded to the washing machine before, but of course the attachments all had to be taken off and replaced when the sink was changed, so something must be different.
The worrying thing is my neighbour seems to be an insomniac and had already complained about my running the washing machine at night. (Which I have to do as my electricity is Economy 7.) I expect an irate visit as soon as the sun comes up, especially as the noise started up again a second time when I thought I had turned the shower pump off and restarted the washing machine. A thick white wire runs from the pump to a switch and fuse, still in the airing cupboard, labelled 'heating and hot water'. When I turned it off the clock display for my timed central heating went out and I assumed the shower pump would be off too, but it managed to run anyway. I can't see any other switch that might turn it off, or any other electrical supply attached to it.
Googling for problems with shower pumps has suggested that the pulsing on and off problem could be due to the boiler heating the water too much (though it is already set at 60 Celsius) or to air in the pipes, but why is it coming on at all when the shower is not on?

I'd be very grateful for any advice. I don't dare turn the washing machine on until my neighbour has gone to work now, and the same may happen with the taps - I don't dare to try them either yet! More details in case they help: there is an electric immersion heater for water but it is not used and is switched off (switch outside the airing cupboard), the washing machine has red and blue hoses attached to hot and cold pipes under the kitchen sink, the water is heated by gas from a back boiler which I have checked yearly - most recently only a couple of weeks ago - the central heating is through radiators, it's a semi-detached house so I only have the one neighbour to worry about but she's very bad tempered, I'm in England, and the pump has 'Wickes Twin Impeller' written on it. Thank you for reading, sorry about the length.

Help me fix my washing machine!

sdis — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:58:24 -0800

Washing Machine troubleshooting fun! Sometimes-not-working-pump! Here's a long shot, but maybe someone knows their washing machines!

We have a Eurostar 1000a front loading european washing machine that we got from our private landlords. We moved in a month ago or so, and it worked a few times pretty well, and then every once in a while, it would end up all soaking wet. It's gotten somewhat worse, and with careful use of the scientific method aka writing everything down these past few days, we've found that there's something wrong with the pump.

The basic cycle seems to consist of 4 parts:

1. Water in
2. Agitate for a while
3. Pump water out
4. Spin and pump water out
-Repeat 4x, add high-speed spin at the end.

parts 1, 2, and 3 all seem to work.
Part 3 leading into Part 4, the pump tries to pump out water, but there's not much left, and so it keeps trying to pump but nothing comes out. Then it starts spinning, and water comes out of the clothes, but the pump still doesn't get anything out. As the spin cycle continues, the water from the clothes basically comes back into the washing machine, and sudsy water is spun around with the clothes. Then the next rinse cycle begins, with sudsy wet clothes instead of fairly dry clothes.

For a while, we thought this was due to the extremely small (maybe 0.5cm diameter opening) syphon connector thingy on our drain, because it would work better if we detached the hose on the washing machine side during part 1 each time and blew into it *hard*, seemingly dislodging whatever would get stuck in the connector each time. (seemed like if I didn't do this, it wouldn't fully drain on part 3 as well as part 4). However it wasn't a perfect fix, and to test it out, I tried running the hose simply into the sink, and got the pattern described above.

Seems like the pump gives out whenever there's not enough water to make pumping simple.

So! Now what? I don't want to buy a new washing machine, and if I can avoid it, I would like to avoid fighting with my landlord if there is an affordable fix (a big perk of this place is having a nice, friendly relationship with my landlord, and I have little to no idea how Austrian tenant laws apply in this case). Anyone know what's going on here?

My water pump dun' busted

jasondigitized — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:43:01 -0800

Something just caused my water pump to flood my storage room. I came into the room, and water was shooting out of a tiny metal valve coming out the main body of the pump. I found a small hose ( maybe 1/8" diameter ) dangling with one side attached to some type of device housed in the power supply. Obviously the other side of that small hose is supposed to connect to that tiny metal valve. So I reconnected the hose and now everything is fine. From what I can gather from the manual I found online, the part of the hose connected to the power supply is part of a pressure regulator. And I am assuming, although I may be wrong, that the regulator caused to small hose to detach from the valve, causing water to come out in order to relieve an extreme amount of pressure. Anyone know what happened????

heat pump vs. Vornados

diode — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:26:41 -0800

Is it cheaper to run a full house heat pump during colder months, or use Vornado heaters to heat subsections of the house that we are in at the moment. I've got a two bedroom house with an attached studio apartment, all heated by one heat pump. Our climate is Pacific Northwest....kind of rainy and cold about 6 months of the year but not drastically freezing except on rare occasions.

We have a pair of 1500 Watt Vornados that we move around the house. They do a fair job of keeping rooms fairly livable without using the heat pump. These are older Vornados....once you turn them on they stay on full blast and do not cycle the power or wattage depending on temperature.

I don't know what the studio dweller uses for heat, but it would probably be useful to find out.

So, I'm wondering, how can I figure out which is the cheaper alternative, using the Vornados or the heat pump?

Is my solar hot water system overheating?

singingfish — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:11:40 -0800

I have an evacuated tube split-system solar hot water system. The pump that circulates water between the storage tank and heat exchanger on the roof, has broken and can't be fixed until after the weekend. The question is, won't the evacuated tubes be damaged in the meantime, as no water is circulating through them to remove the heat? I imagine the effect must be like running a car with no radiator fluid.

Do I need to replace parts of a breast pump after long disuse?

leahwrenn — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:25:16 -0800

What, if anything, do I need to replace on my Ameda Purely Yours breast pump, after 2 years' hiatus? I haven't used the Ameda Purely Yours breast pump in a couple of years. It seems like I might need to replace some of the tubing or silicone thingies or the other parts of the "HygeniKit"---maybe they got grotty (or didn't get adequately cleaned when I stopped using the pump). On the other hand, some part of the company's website seems to indicate that maybe I could just get away with boiling the parts that come in contact with milk.

Does anyone know either way? (Boiling would be easier, as there doesn't appear to be any place super-local that carries the Ameda parts, but I can always order online.)

What bicycle floor pump fits well in a transport case?

thewalrus — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:26:37 -0800

I am looking for a bicycle floor pump that is particularly slim, suitable for packing inside a Trico Iron case with my road bike for air travel. The pump I have now is too fat in one dimension. The Trico Iron case is used to pack a 58 cm carbon fiber framed road bicycle and wheelset. The bike fits in the case perfectly with plenty of room left over for a helmet, shoes, bottles, small tool kit etc. packed around the corners.

The users manual for the case can be seen here, which describes pretty much how I pack my bike. Handlebars are taken out of the stem and rotated, seatpost taken out and put alongside the bike, etc. This leaves plenty of room at the bottom of the case (below the crankset and chainrings) to put something long such as a floor pump. The pump I have now is basic model which fits well except for the pressure gauge. The gauge sticks up into the area where the wheel-protecting foam and wheelset pack in the case above the bike frame. If you take a look at the photo of the pump, if the gauge were rotated 90 degrees around the body of the pump it would be much slimmer in one dimension and should fit perfectly. Despite being cheap it works well, other higher-end floor pumps seem to have the same arrangement of foot rests and gauge...

Can anyone recommend a floor pump that is extra skinny, or a particularly heavy duty touring type frame pump (with folding footrests?) that would be suitable for use as a traveling floor pump? Is there such a thing as a floor pump with a pressure gauge on top of the main body, with only footrests protruding from the bottom?

Aquarium Pump Cat Fountain Surprise

quarterframer — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:49:20 -0800

Er, I mean supplies. Need pump advice from someone who knows their fish tank equipment. I am going to build something like this homemade cat fountain over the weekend.

I am overwhelmed with the choices available for pumps. Wish list:

1) An off/on switch (if possible).
2) Will either have a good gentle flow for this purpose or will be adjustable (not looking to build a water park, just a good trickle will suffice).
3) Will be quiet (don't want a loud electric pump hummmm that will deter the cats).
4) Easy to clean.

Thanks in advance for recommendations of specific pump models.

Why I am doing this (in case you are wondering): Cats like moving water. All the purpose built fountains I can find have plastic basins made in China. We want to minimize the risk of bad plastic stuff leaching into the water. I am aware that the pump will be plastic. Just minimizing.

Help me build a bicycle powered water pump.

electroboy — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:37:12 -0800

Help me build a bicycle powered water pump. So I got drafted into putting together a human powered water pump for the neighborhood Green Fair. I tried to tell them I'm a civil engineer, not mechanical, but to no avail. So I thought I'd ask y'all for suggestions.

Anyway, the organizer is interested in a demonstration pump similar in concept to the Playpump, so that the local kids can pump water from Bucket A to Bucket B. Eventually the pump will end up at the community garden to be used to pump water from the rain barrel onto the plants.

So the basic requirements are:

1. Relatively cheap (hopefully the bike will be donated)
2. Somewhat durable. It won't be used 24 hours a day, but should be able to stand up to rowdy kids and semi-regular use in the garden.
3. Reasonably efficient, so that a normal person pedalling at a moderate rate can move 3-4 gallons in a few minutes.

It'll be drawing out of a rainbarrel so it won't need to generate a lot of suction, nor will it need to blast the water out of the hose.

I was thinking of trying to salvage a waterpump from a car and fitting it with a sprocket. Is this a reasonable idea? Any other suggestions for cheap, nonelectric pumps? Will the gear ratio be enough to get any volume out of the pump or should I try something different? Has anyone built anything like this before?

How to freplace dead battery in sump pump?

mmf — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:32:08 -0800

Clueless homeowner question: Our sump pump (which has a battery for backup) is beeping and blinking, telling me to replace the battery. It looks like a car battery, but my son (he who knows how stuff works) is away ay school. What kind of battery do I get? Where do I get it? And, most scary, how do I (safely) unhook the old one and replace it with the new one. Don't assume I have even the most basic skills or knowledge.

Impatience Might Kill Me Yet

IronLizard — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:13:55 -0800

One malfunctioning fuel pump + one fuel pump with a broken positive terminal = ? How safe are electric motors immersed in gasoline, anyway? I picked up a used EFI fuel pump over the weekend for a few dollars and in the process of installing it, the positive tab snapped off. Soldering wasn't really an option because there would have been no good mechanical joint to brace the solder. So I took the two apart and made a frankenstein out of the two. So now I'm sitting here, having listened to it whir being powered by a PC power supply, wondering if I should trust this inside a tank full of highly flammable liquid. Am I insane? Or is this fairly safe, considering these things go bad inside of tanks all the time without catastrophic results? From powering it up I think it would be fine at the beginning but, if there is some misalignment from it's mutilation, it may heat up from the friction.

Other than a bit of impatience at having to wait a week for a replacement, I'm rather interested in seeing if this worked. The fact that no parts place accepts a core for this pretty much tells me they're not supposed to be repairable.

sump pump concerns

GrumpyMonkey — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 06:26:14 -0800

I have 2 related questions about sump pumps. 1) Will bleach damage the pump? 2) Is there a way to monitor the pump for failure (or the water level which would tell me the same thing) easily? Basically, we have a sump pump in our basement* that we recently replaced after our old one failed. I now live in constant fear that this new one will fail as well and since our A/C unit and water heater are both on the floor of the basement, there is a lot of damage that might be caused. My first thought on monitoring was to put a simple float in and somehow rig a mechanical contraption to a guage at the top of the basement stairs but would prefer a more tried solution.

I also plan to build a cover for the hole that the pump is in since the smell from the mildew that has built up permeats the guest room directly above but am thinking I should pour bleach in regularly as well to kill any nastiness down there but don't know what that will do to the pump.

*12'x12' concrete hole dug in the middle of our crawl space containing a/c and water heater. Our dehumidifier and A/C both drain into the pump hole as well as minor leaks during heavy rain.

Do I have to compromise silence in order to get higher PSI from a water pump?

torpark — Tue, 08 May 2007 00:02:25 -0800

Do I have to compromise silence in order to get higher PSI from a water pump? I would like a water pump that can produce ~40+ PSI, but I don't want something very loud. Silent if at all possible. Every pump I have had that could do 40+ PSI has been terribly loud. Are there alternatives? It will operate indoors, submerged or unsubmerged is not important.

Mysterious/Nefarious Pumpy Handly Trucky Things...

jwhowa — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 15:29:03 -0800

What the heck are these pump handle thingies on the back of this truck? I am seeing more and more full sized trucks (which appear to be personal vehicles, not corporate vehicles) with these pumps on the tool box. It looks like the pump handle you would use to pump gas INTO your car, and clearly it's attached to some kind of pump, but I don't see and reservoirs on the truck which would lead me to believe these pump handles are used to pump something OUT of the truck. Anyway, photo inside... Would love to know what the heck they are...

Bad gas pumps?

jacquilynne — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:11:41 -0800

To whom do I report a gas station that I suspect has inaccurate gas pumps in Toronto, Ontario? My google-fu is weak, and I also don't know if it's a federal, provincial or municipal issue.

I predict to myself how much gas I'm going to need to fill my tank each time I fill it up, and I am within a liter of being correct 95% of the time. Today, based on how far I had driven and what my tank showed, I mentally guessed 30liters. At 34 liters, I finally gave up, because I was beginning to worry that there was something wrong with the auto shut-off on the pump. At 34 liters, the gas gauge still didn't show as completely full when I turned on the car.

I can believe it's possible that I was off by 4 liters in my guess, but I simply can't believe I was off by more than that--which I'd have to have been for my tank to not be filled by the 34 liters. The most gas I've *ever* put in my car is 38 liters, and that time the "you're nearly out of gas, idiot" light had been on for the last few miles. In this case, my gas gauge was still showing as me having more than a quarter of a tank.

BreastPumpFilter

Eiwalker — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:11:38 -0800

What's the best breast pump? Hopefully I can get a nice, two-boobs-at-a-time set-up for about $150. But if it costs more, it costs more.

No-Xplode says "Do not shake"

LordSludge — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:30:22 -0800

No-Xplode says "Do not shake" on the label. Why not? Getting back into weight lifting, and, on the recommendation of a friend, one of the supplements I'm taking is No-Xplode. It's basically a pre-workout energy-drink/workout-enhancer, but it comes in powder form, ready to mix with water. For some reason there's a pretty prominent warning on the label that says:

While mixing N.O.-Xplode
DO NOT SHAKE
Stir powder with utensil

Now I'm typically mixing & drinking this in my cube at work, so it's logistically easier to shake it to mix rather than deal with a stirring utensil. It doesn't seem terribly carbonated or anything, so fizzing is not a problem. Here's the only related bit Google turned up, which simply says:

Also NOTE to anyone reading this, read the label of NO-XPLODE if you take it...DO NOT SHAKE! STIR! I found this out the ackward and hard way

I'm really more curious than anything, in a "WTF??" way: Why shouldn't I shake it if I wanna?