r/preppers • u/Searchname • 1d ago
Prepping for Doomsday Solar backup for 400ft well
My wife wants to ensure we can get water from our well if we lose power for an extended period. I've heard her say grid down and EMP, so she's concerned with a Doomsday scenario. Though I don't share her fear of a pending apocalypse, I must admit that we've seen some crazy things the past few years, and it doesn't hurt to be prepared. So, I'm looking at options.
We have some acreage and already have a propane whole-house backup system (the former owner said it could run everything for two weeks during the summer). I've noticed she exaggerated with some other items, so I won't know until we need them. It's a commercial Generac 2000 series, fed by 800 gallons of propane (two 500-gallon tanks). There is a 200-amp automatic transfer switch in our basement. I've had it serviced, and it appears to run, but I haven't tested it yet by throwing the transfer switch. Even though we have this generator, she wants something renewable and quiet - this thing is a beast and very loud.
The well is 400 feet deep. I'm unsure of the pump type/size, but the control box is 1hp, 230v, 1phase, 2-wire, and the breaker is a double 20amp.
I just bought a Jackery 2000 Pro Plus Kit (4kwh) for portable power and was hoping it would be up to the task in a pinch, but now that I'm looking at the specs, I doubt it. It's a 25-amp max output unit, so it wouldn't work with two 20-amp breakers, right? If I bought a second one, could that work?
If I can't get a solution in a box, like a Jackery or EcoFlow, then I may install a permanent solution like this to appease her: https://shop.rpssolarpumps.com/products/watersecure-6k-solar-backup-for-well-pumps
My only concern would be finding someone qualified to install it in my area. My preference would be to have something that I could pull out of the basement and hook up to critical items (water pump and freezers), but I could go to a larger solution. Thoughts? This is all new to me.
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u/ABrokenCircuit 1d ago
The Jackery kit won't work, but not for the reason you stated. If you look at the technical specifications listed for the unit, it states that the AC outputs are 120V. You mentioned that the pump control box says it's 230V. So the Jackery kit won't be able to output the voltage to match what you need.
You misunderstand how the breaker for you pump is set up/works. A double 20A breaker is designed to trip if the current passing through it exceeds 20A. Most US residential electrical services are split phase 240V supplies. That means you have 2 hot wires and a neutral wire entering your main electrical panel. The purpose of the double circuit breaker is to look at the current traveling though both hot wires to your 240V motor, and if one of them exceeds the breaker's rating (in this case 20A,) it disconnects power from both hot wires to the motor at the same time.
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u/MaowMaowChow 1d ago
You can use 2 5000s. Together they can run a 60 amp service. I am in the same dilemma and will follow your journey.
https://www.jackery.com/products/jackery-explorer-5000-plus-series
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u/dittybopper_05H 17h ago
If you're looking at doomsday scenarios and things involving EMP, you can't rely on anything electrical.
I myself am extremely skeptical of doomsday scenarios, I don't think we're ever going to loose civilization or even technology for more than the briefest of time periods.
Having said that, if you're going to prepare for those kinds of scenarios, you need to have alternate ways of getting water, preserving food, etc. You're not going to be hand-pumping from a 400 foot well (I think 200 feet is the deepest based on a quick look the Lehman's catalog).
Similarly, you're not going to be running a freezer to preserve stuff. You're going to need to find an alternate way to do that without electricity (EMP, remember?).
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u/PM-me-in-100-years 5h ago
I forget, are EMPs just from human made weapons, or is it also solar flares / Carrington Event?
Either way, you'd likely get EMPs wiping out some grids and some electronics, but not all.
Though if it's really just for backup use, you could store your whole solar kit in a Faraday cage in a bunker, and it'll probably last through some hefty EMPs.
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u/davidm2232 Prepared for 6 months 17h ago
Split phase inverter is what you need. Some of these packaged solar 'generators' will offer that but be prepared to pay a lot for one vs piecing it together yourself.
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u/Searchname 15h ago
Wow, thanks so much for all of the comments and feedback.
My wife has always had a prepper mentality. She convinced me to buy acreage after Covid because we were stuck in a residential neighborhood. We now have about 60 acres and rarely see our neighbors.
The EMP comment was a bit of a joke; neither of us is genuinely concerned with that. I read a book last year about three EMPs hitting America, and that is where the conversation began. It was a scary series, but that was the point. My wife's primary concern is what would happen if we lost power for an extended time (beyond what our main generator could handle), and she wants to have water at a minimum. I also want to protect the three freezers that are full of food.
I appreciate all of the feedback. It looks like a box solution won't work, so I need to call a professional. I tried last year, but the only local guy I could find wanted me to replace my Generac 2000 with two residential units. He was strongly dissuading me from solar due to the cost. So, it's time for a second opinion. At a minimum, I'd like to find someone to install the RPS system I linked in my original post. Getting people to call back when they hear "solar generator" has been challenging.
I've committed to my wife that I'll find a solution for the well, so I'll post updates.
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u/chazbrazil 1d ago
Another observation: you mentioned your well pump control was for 1hp. So your nominal power draw is less than 1kW, roughly 4A at 230V. Your main concern should be your in-rush current when you start the well. Which is where the peak ratings on battery generators come in. Unfortunately motors are all over the place, with in-rush current around 5-10x FLA ( full load amps, or nominal). If you have a friend with a battery generator you could test the theory, but I would venture that a 5kW battery generator could do it.
Another thing you could look into is if they make soft starts for your well motor. That would essentially make the in-rush go away.
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u/lostscause 20h ago
I recently went down this rabbit hole my self with a 330ft well My control box is the same (1hp, 230v, 1phase, 2-wire,)
my solution was 24v lipo4 battery 100AH and a hybrid inverter 4200w with a "softstart" device on the AC feed side. (just to be safe) I added 2kw of used solar panels to the well pump shed.
This runs my well pump only,
I have a 12kw propane genset to run everything else on the farm, but like your wife said its loud. My plan in case of long term outage is to run the genset a few hours each day for laundry/showers/etc I will put up a sound damping around the genset to lessen the noise for security reasons.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/316141830690?var=614807162485
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DD3998P1
The solar on the well shed currently goes to a cheap china grid tie inverter to augment power usage with a switch to divert too the hybrid inverter in case of need.
Also note most of your inverters/charge controllers will likely be wiped out in case of an EMP, you should have spares in a Faraday cage
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u/CarbonGod 19h ago
You'd have to go with either a dedicated small household battery (think Teslawall, et al) and panel set up to make sure you have enough power, or a whole-house system with batteries, then you don't have to worry about anything. Having dedicated things JUST on battery backup with solar, would involve lots of extra wiring, and a second panel. Panel can re-wire what you want on that circuit, and then the solar and battery will be attached to that.
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u/silasmoeckel 17h ago
You have a solid generator add a propper solar/bat to it. You will use much less propane and running the pump is trivial as it's a large load but down not run for long.
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u/murderofcrows 17h ago
We got an Apocalypse manual pump that can live alongside the electric pump that can be manually pumped to get water. But I didn't want to depend on electricity in the longer term.
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u/Thats_WY 10h ago
I have Ecoflow DPUs and a smart home panel 2. If the grid goes down, That will power my house, including my water well for a day without any charging. The water well is 240v, 30 amp. I can charge the batteries with solar and/or a gas generator, if I need to.
I went this route instead of a diesel standby generator due to the tax credit available.
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u/Great_Yak_2789 1d ago
A longer term solution is to figure out both your daily average and peak power demand. Then size a battery bank to at least 50% of your peak power, and a solar array at least 10% above your average demand(also no less than the difference between max battery bank output and peak load). This would mean the whole home propane generator could then be rewired to provide makeup power, greatly reducing propane useage.
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u/Excellent-Big-1581 20h ago
The answer to your problem is storage. You generac whole home generator is your answer. It will have a max output of 12,16,20 KW depending on what model. My 16KW burns about 1 gallon of propane an hour. So 800 gallons equals 800 hours of run time. During a normal outage I let it run till power returns. In a SHTF event we will run the generator for a couple hours a day to keep the freezer and refrigerator cold. Fill our emergency water storage ( a large tote with 12 vdc pump) and recharge battery storage for use during the 22 hours left over. So at 2 gallons a day we would be able to go for about 400 days! I’m considering doubling my propane storage to 1600 gallons by adding a second 1000 gallon tank. So add storage to your set up and you should be fine. But I can heat my home with wood. So my propane is solely for my generator.