Water Pump FAIL

[@StoneKathryn]

Too bad about the start-up amperage draw of that huge water pump. I'm glad you figured out that you would have to re-wire your whole system to accommodate that huge pump so you decided to go back to the small RV water pump instead. Nice that you can send the new invertor back and put your original invertor back in. Nice pump house to protect your water pressure equipment from low temperatures. Thanks for this TSH!

[@elyohep]

No fail guys!!! It is all a learning experience. You are doing awesome and making that beautiful place yours. Love how you include your kids in every project. Keep it up!🌵🌞

[@TinyShinyHome]

Hah thanks for the encouragement - we need it :)

[@theupsideofdownsizing]

The additional shade sail looks great and you got it up just in time too! 👍 You guys might not be plumbers, but you are electricians! That solar set up looks like a work of art! 👍👍 Now just out of curiosity....why didn't you just get a smaller pump since the whole system was pretty much done? One thing is for sure, your attitude is fantastic and you guys make a "Fail" video look like so much fun. Looking forward to seeing the deck! That'll make a huge difference in the feeling of your homestead.

[@TinyShinyHome]

It will double our square footage which will be so nice!

[@TinyShinyHome]

Oh, and we just want to simplify it as much as possible. With a 12 volt pump and solar panel and small battery it will be not require us to have to run more electrical lines and drill into the side of our Airstream.

[@pamkaufman3662]

I love your positive attitude! It had to be so frustrating but you kept at it and I'm sure you have, or will have, it all figured out. Great job!

[@TinyShinyHome]

Pam Kaufman Thanks, Pam! I think we’ve just about got it!

[@GreenHorn1Acre]

The learning curves... Don’t be shy to film your mistakes... they are as truthful as your success 👌🏼 I like your channel & keep up the good work.

[@TinyShinyHome]

There will be lots of mistakes:) that’s how we learn:)

[@GreenHorn1Acre]

Tiny Shiny Home Yes we do...

[@brianm6060]

Hey man, I love fails that are documented and presented for others to learn. I keep fails in my videos to make sure others see what things are really like.

[@TinyShinyHome]

It’s definitely a learning experience over here. So much to learn but excited about our plan to fix it.

[@melindaneave1567]

That was the pump we were going to buy. Now we think it's back to the drawing board. Puff dirt......there are no words for how I feel about it!

[@TinyShinyHome]

Let us know if you come up with another solution. I think we’re pretty set on the 12 volt RV water pump and accumulator tank

[@BeginningfromthisMorning]

I know it was a super hard week. Love you guys! And cheers to an awesome deck and no muddy feet in the airstream. 😂. You are going to love monsoon season!

[@TinyShinyHome]

I hope so! I’m a little nervous about all the mud.

[@BeginningfromthisMorning]

Tiny Shiny Home yeah, it will be interesting to see what happens on your land. Hopefully nothing is a major flood. Flash floods are a big problem in certain areas and roads during monsoons. But you will love the skies and the crazy rains. The wind and dust (Haboobs) is the worst part. Maybe since you’re up against the mountain, it will deflect some of the dust.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Let’s hope. Though our dirt driveway really kicks up a lot of dust now. It will be interesting to see what happens.

[@bondpaz]

If only I had a dollar for every mistake we’ve made. 😁 Lookin forward to that deck. I did that pulling rocks in the wagon one time. It just about killed me. Lol.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Kids enjoy it when the flies are not attacking us.

[@BonnieHaley]

Hello 👋 ❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@mther123]

We are waiting your video, great video

[@TinyShinyHome]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed watching us fail;)

[@patrickjobling8676]

A pair of shadey characters iffins i ever did dunn see..😎😍😁

[@misstim8748]

Making mistakes is all part of it! Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don't work"! Hopefully you will have only found the one way that didn't work! Can't wait to see the deck build!

[@TinyShinyHome]

What a great quote. I’ve been meaning to read a biography about him! Now I really need to.

[@brianmueller2293]

Really enjoy watching your progress and solutions to the issues that come up. We live in Tucson and love Cochise County, I look for RU4 land outside Patagonia all the time. Out of curiosity, what do you do with your grey water? Do, or will you install a septic system?

[@TinyShinyHome]

We will be installing a septic system hopefully fairly soon. Right now we water a tree with our gray water.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Hey friends, now that we figured out our system, we've created a small downloadable product to help you build your own off-grid pressurized water pump. Check it out! products.tinyshinyhome.com/solar-powered-water-pump

[@HighDesertHomestead]

You didn't fail you just found out a way that it didn't work. They make a submersible 12 volt pump that pushes 1600 gallons an hour. It's about $45 on Amazon. I bought a 660 gallon per hour marine sub pump on amazon for $17 that runs our swamp cooler. All you really need is a small.pressure tank and the appropriate pump. You are pumping a long way that is what was tripping your system. I would gravity feed to an accumulator tank closer to the trailer and pump from there. Your pressure tank is what pushes the water to your trailer. The biggest thing is to have a foot valve, also known as a back flow prevention valve, between your pump.and tank so that your tank pressure is not pushing back against your pump. Once you fill your pressure tank 3/4 of the way with water you can shoot air into to compensate for the lack of pressure the pump does not create. You may have to do this periodically but it can be done way cheaper this way. I have set up many irragation systems this way and can talk you through it if you like. Hope this helps. Email if you want [e-mail].

[@TinyShinyHome]

Thanks, we know all that - check valve, accumulator tank, etc. the issue is the pump has to be close to the big tank which is 100’ away so running 12v that far wasn’t an option. This led us to 120v pumps which led us down this path of power escalation. Anyhow moving forward we’ll do a small 12v pump powered by it’s own solar panel and battery so there are no long power runs. And we’ll use a large accumulator tank to help with pressure drop over the long distance. Should be much simpler and save us a ton of power 👍🏻

[@HighDesertHomestead]

@@TinyShinyHome Awesome sometimes it gets crazy try to figure out which pump will work. The manufacturer measures them in gallons ot psi. I just bought a bunch of different ones to see which ones work. Usually the greater the amps the greater the pressure. I have seen some transfer pumps that work well. Found a 3 amp at TSC that pushed about 30 pounds. It was a little pricey a put $75. But they are cheaper on Amazon. Lot of options for sure. Enjoy your videos. Keep them coming. 👍

[@TinyShinyHome]

@@HighDesertHomestead Haha tell me about it! I've noticed that, too. Sometimes is gallons per minute, gallons per hour. Makes it hard to fast math them. We're finding where we're located + virus, is pushing back Amazon shipments just long enough to throw our project timelines all out of whack so sometimes we buy local. Really, we do try to get as much as we can local because we want to support the businesses around here. They're a lifesaver for last minute parts and not having to drive an hour just to get a pipe fitting. Thanks, will do!

[@fortranchstead]

@@TinyShinyHome we’ve been researching the same for our place. I had the HF pump when we lived in Baja but we were Ongrid there. Now I know to avoid that one for this place. Back to the drawing board but isn’t this what it’s all about learning from others?

[@dalestephan6777]

The pump should be closer to the airstream and rely on pressure from the big tank the pump wont have to work so hard ( lower ramps? In theory) what is FLA rating on the pump motor) try that first. The start up will always be a tad higher. That extension card loses amps cuz it too too long. Voltage and amp drop. 🙂

[@TERRYPK]

😎

[@____5837]

Couldn't you have just got a motor soft starter to limit the inrush starting current of the motor?

[@TinyShinyHome]

Eh, maybe. They didn't list the max startup watts, but regardless, we were having enough voltage sag that the bigger inverter was still cutting off and we would have had to re-wire the whole thing. I mean, it was running at around 120 amps on our 12v system which is nearly as much as our Air Conditioner. That's nuts. That's why we decided to re-think the whole thing and go back to a smaller pump and 12v.

[@sharonhaas8503]

💝💘💖

[@joebrophy195]

Sorry it did not work out for you guys. What I do to transfer water from my water trailer to my 2500 gallon water tank is use a pump similar to what you had and run a 2000w honda generator to pump into my big tank. This takes about 1/2 hour. The cord from the pump to the generator is 2' so there is no voltage drop from a long power cord. I'm also off grid. Sulphur Springs Coop wanted around $25,000 to run power from my neighbors transformer to me! For $25,000 I can build a pretty nice Solar & battery setup. Anyway, good luck on your new idea.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Yeah this 1hp pump would kill that generator, too. The pump is just way too powerful for our RV powered setup :( We do have a 1/2 hp transfer pump that we use to get the water from the big tank to our RV tank, but with 6 people we're transferring every day and want a more permanent solution that is feeding pressurized water into our city water inlet.

[@Adam_Gray]

Nikola Tesla we need you now! 😂 What's your take on a stand alone solar water pump for this application?...Besides cost.

[@TinyShinyHome]

That's the plan. Put a solar panel + battery in our pump house drop down to a much much smaller 12v pump and just run it directly so it's on it's own power system. We didn't' do this first because we though it wouldn't provide enough pressure, but with a large accumulator tank we should be fine.

[@hayhay8347]

A deck is a great idea! Outhouse next?

[@TinyShinyHome]

We’ll see!!

[@BonnieHaley]

You cut Your hair ❤

[@TinyShinyHome]

This is from like 4 years ago 😂

[@clampen]

One major issue, your in the desert. Since a well is out of the question (cost, rancher deleting the wells), and your in the desert. In the desert you get your water from water catchment systems. Yeah your pump is incorrectly designed. But your wife stated your coming into monsoon season. Huge key! Where you get your water is from the sky 95% of off grid people. Yet you have no way of capturing this free water! you put up sun shades by your Airstream, but you have ZERO ways of collecting free rainwater to put into your catchment. If your using your catchment for drinking water, you can still harvest rain water, just needs to be filtered correctly.

[@TinyShinyHome]

Rainwater catchment has always been the goal, just have to save for the tanks and materials to build the rain roof. All in good time. We have plenty of access to eater right now.