Some Technical Talk Made Simple

Technically speaking, the Simple Pump™ is a positive displacement progressive lift pump. If you conduct further research, you will find others referring to it as a ‘sucker rod‘ pump. This is in contrast to what is popularly called ‘suction‘ pumps.

Basically there are two ways to pump water ‘up‘ a well and against the force of gravity. The ‘suction‘ method has been used for many years and is still commonly found on hand pumps placed on shallow wells of less than 25 feet of depth.

When you operate the hand lever of a suction pump, the mechanism removes air from the drop pipe running down into the water, creating a low pressure area inside the pipe. The surrounding air pressure, now higher than inside the pipe, pushes on the surface of the well water which forces water up the pipe and out the top.

The same thing is accomplished every time you ‘suck‘ on a straw to drink your soda or milk shake. You create the low pressure inside the straw and the surrounding air pressure pushes the liquid up the straw and into your mouth. Thus the reason they are called ‘suction‘ pumps. The practical limit for suction pumps is around 25 feet of depth. Anything deeper and it just doesn’t work.

The other way to move water up the well is to push, or lift, it up from the bottom. In other words, mechanical force must be applied down below the water level to move the water up the pipe and out the top. This is why your submersible pump is placed at the bottom of the drop pipe and lowered down far below the static water level. Using this method, electric submersible pumps can easily move water hundreds of feet up the pipe and into your home.

The bottom line is, mechanical energy must be applied to the water at the bottom of the well, rather than from the top, if you wish to pump from depths greater than 25 feet. So how does the Simple Pump™ accomplish this?

Similar to a submersible pump, Simple Pump™ uses a drop pipe to funnel water to the top of the well. Though in our case, the drop pipe come in 9 foot sections and are securely screwed together for a water tight fit. Inside the drop pipe you will find thinner ‘sucker rods‘ (poorly named because they do not actually ‘suck‘ water) which act to transmit the mechanical energy you impart when you move the lever handle up and down all the way down to the pump cylinder placed at the very bottom of the drop pipe ‘stack‘.

Essentially when you move the Simple Pump™ handle up and down, this moves the rods inside the pipe up and down which in turn activates the pump piston at the bottom of the stack, moving water up the pipe and out the top. Or through another pipe or hose into your home.

From a technical standpoint, you are ‘lifting’ water up from the bottom of the well in incremental steps. When you lift the handle up you are pushing the sucker rods down. The piston inside the cylinder pump at the bottom, which is connected to the sucker rods, also moves down. The lower ball valve (see illustration upper right) in the pump cylinder is forced to seat/seal while the upper ball valve unseats/lifts, allowing water to enter the cylinder.

When you move the lever arm down, it lifts the sucker rods and the piston in the pump cylinder up. The upper ball valve inside the pump cylinder then seals/seats and the entire column of water previously moved into the cylinder is ‘lifted’ up into the drop pipe. At the same time as the water if lifted, more water moves into the pump cylinder awaiting its turn to be moved up the drop pipe.

Step by step, water is moved up the drop pipe from the bottom of the well until it reaches the top. From there, either it splashes out into your bucket or is directed by another hose or pipe into your home’s pressure tank. Presto, water is moved up from the bottom of your deep well in surprisingly large quantities. In most cases, at the rate of 5 gallons per minute. Got any of those 5 gallon buckets hanging around the house? You could fill one of them in a minute using Simple Pump™.

Parts used in the Simple Pump™ pump system.

* Please note: images of parts are not to scale.