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Answering Your Water Pump Questions

Answering Your Water Pump Questions

with RPS Engineer Mike

How do I know what water pump to buy?

Knowing what water pump to buy can be confusing to some. We would always recommend speaking to an expert, such as a pump specialist, about your specific situation in order to get the best recommendation. But if that isn’t an option for you, hopefully the information here will help inform you on the important factors to take note of and how to choose the best pump for your needs.


For the majority of wells, a submersible well pump will be the best choice in terms of the kind of pump to use if you plan on pumping the water to a pressure tank or a storage tank/cistern. Most major well pump companies design their pumps to be able to fit into a 4” well casing, with most submersibles being just under 4” in diameter. So you will usually need a well casing that is 4” or larger to be able to use a submersible pump. There are some submersible well pumps that are made for 3” or even 2” wells, but they are far less common than pumps made for 4” wells. Luckily, modern well drillers usually stick to 4” or larger when drilling wells, with most wells that are smaller than that being older. 


Now as for what submersible pumps to buy, that can vary wildly depending on how deep your well is, and what kind of flow rate you want to get from the pump. If you would like to learn more about how to size a well pump for your situation, see our blog post about pump sizing here


If you are in need of a pump to draw water from a storage tank or cistern and push it somewhere else such as into a household or to run sprinkler/drip lines for irrigation, an on demand pressure pump would be a good fit for that kind of situation. These are surface style pumps, so they will sit outside the tank you are drawing water from, and you can set the pump to push water at a specific PSI. Being able to precisely control the PSI of the water coming from the pump makes it perfect for a lot of situations. You can use it in place of a pressure tank to supply water to your household at a standard household pressure. Need to run drip lines at exactly 20 PSI? An on demand pressure pump will push high volumes of water at a consistent 20 PSI to run your drip lines efficiently. These pumps are useful in many more situations, but these are just some of the most common uses for on demand pressure pumps.


Hopefully this information was useful to you. There are other kinds of water pumps out there, but these are the two most common water pumps used for households and small irrigation setups. As mentioned earlier, we always recommend talking to an expert in order to be sure you choose a pump that is the best fit for your intended use. Feel free to call one of our pump specialists at 855-560-5670 if you would like to talk to someone about your situation and get a recommendation for a pump! 

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