I met Doc Faison, then owner of this publication, at the National Ground Water Association convention in the fall of 1993. If you attended any of the state or national groundwater industry conventions in the ’90s, you’ll remember Doc. He always wore his signature red blazer and had a camera dangling around his neck looking for a photo op.
Many of the ideas for my column are inspired by questions I get from readers and friends in the industry. A few weeks ago, someone asked how to wire in a pressure switch with a pump protection device that required a control relay. The pump protector’s internal relay was rated at 10 amps, sufficient for a 1 horsepower, 230 volt pump but not enough to handle his 3 horsepower pump motor directly, so an additional relay was called for.
Check valves are an important component of every submersible pump water system. In this article, we will talk about the reasons for using check and the different types of check valves, and show which ones are best for submersible applications. And, finally, we will go over the proper placement of check valves in these systems.
Several years ago, I wrote an article about drop pipe: the pipe that connects to a submersible pump and carries the well water to the well head. In that article, I focused on plastic drop pipe, both rigid PVC and semi-flexible HDPE (poly pipe), describing the pros and cons of each and the load bearing capacity of the various sizes.
I was visiting with a pump contractor a few weeks ago and was interested to learn that his business has nearly doubled this year over last year. I asked why he thought it was doing so well; was it pent up demand after four years of a tough economy, the loss of a competitor or something else?
There are many situations where the water demand on a well water system exceeds the production capacity of the well. For instance, 10 gpm is typically considered the minimum flow rate needed to adequately supply a single family residence.
Pressure tanks are an integral part of residential well systems. They come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and in previous articles in this publication, I’ve described them in detail, the different types, their purpose and how to size them.
These old Fats Domino lyrics, written for a love song, are apropos for the groundwater industry, especially in this era of changing weather patterns and dropping water tables.
I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but in mine, it’s open house season in the groundwater business. Many of the groundwater product distributors hold dealer open houses at this time of year to thank their contractor customers for their business and give them an opportunity to purchase products and supplies for the upcoming busy season.
There has been a lot of talk lately about “the cloud”-cloud computing, cloud data storage, etc. So what is this cloud all about and how, if at all, does it apply to the groundwater industry? I decided to do a little snooping, so I visited a company I’d heard about in Las Vegas called Aqua Management Inc. (AMI).
