Garden Water Pump

Water is pumped from a shallow well to provide water for the garden vegetables and flowers.

We are lucky* enough to live on ground with a very high water table. Therefore a soakaway which was previously used to drain away rainwater is always left 1.5 m deep with water. A powerful self-priming Dabjet 81 M-P pump was purchased, which is powerful enough to draw the water from the well and provide enough pressure for a 20 m garden hosepipe.

The pump is fitted with a pressure switch and reservoir which allows the pump to run on demand only. We can leave the pump running for an hour while watering the garden and the water level in the well only drops a few centimetres. This, I thought, would make the system ideal for supplying water for toilet flushing as well. Check eBay for jet pumps.

Garden watering is becoming more of an issue here in East Anglia as we do not experience high annual rainfall, so having an alternative water supply for the hosepipe or watering can is very valuable.

* The high water table meant the house and subsequent extension had to be built on 12 m piles, as the soil was too waterlogged to allow conventional foundations. This is an expensive way of building!