Sump Pumping

[Mark R]

Hi,

We are getting ready to pump the newly discovered Rowter Hole Sump in Derbyshire. I have been advised that the Ireby sump buster is a great solution and ideally suited to our needs down there. I was wondering if anyone has some advice on building (or borrowing) one of these systems?
We are restricted to getting about an 8ft length of rigid pipe down there because of two corners- not sure if that makes any difference though.

The current plan is to divert the stream away from the sump and pump out behind a dam which will be about 20m away and 3-4m higher.

Any help will be gratefully received.

Cheers
Mark (Buttered Badger Potholing Club)

 

[bograt]

Where is the water going to go to from the storage dam? Dimensions of the sump (i.e. volume of water to be shifted?)

 

[Blakethwaite]

We've used a submersible sump pump to shift approx 15,000 litres of sludge approx 100m in absolutely foul conditions. Benefits are that its obviously dead easy once in place but you need to be happy with having electricity underground (& have a lot of cable presuming the sump is at the bottom of Rowter!). We used flat pipe so corners weren't an issue. An Earbyesque vacuum pump was used initially but it proved too hard work.

 

[Simon Wilson]

The Earby pump was designed for a particular purpose. It shifted 18,000 litres of water in about two hours but it didn't shift it far. If you are familiar with Duke Street Sump, the dam was built in the sump as far forward as it could be and the pump was built into the dam so it had to lift the water very little height. It was more a case of moving the water horizontally at the start. When the sump was empty the height was still only 1.2m. The maths is very simple.

The Ireby pump has a bore of 102mm (4" soil pipe) so there's about a litre of water for every 120mm of length. So if you're lifting it 1.2m then you have to exert a force of 10kg repeatedly which is hard work if you're doing it every 3 seconds. If the pump has a stroke of 1.2m then you move 10 litres every stroke, 20 strokes a minutes shifts 200 litres in a minute and 15,000 in 75 minutes. We had to lift up to 10kg every 3 seconds for 90 minutes and it was possible with 4 strong, fit blokes.

There's also friction and inertia to think about. But the good news is that momentum works in your favour because the pump is designed so that the water keeps flowing up when you are pushing down and the faster you pump the more efficient it works. Our Ireby pump developed and increased in efficiency. If you're not lifting water very high you could do away with the footvalve entirely which would make it even more efficient.

I suggest you do the maths and design a system to suit the task like we did in Ireby. You can use any size bore. I've made a similar pump using 68mm rainwater pipe. Sizes for soil pipe are 3", 4" and 6". I can send you photos of pumps in pieces. The only parts that you can't buy from a plumber's merchants are the pistons and foot valves. We can lend you those parts and if you get really serious we can laser cut super efficient pistons and footvalves (at a price).

Earby Pothole Club, suppliers of bespoke underground engineering solutions.

 

[alastairgott]

Might be repeating someone you've already heard of, so apologies. Have you tried talking to henry rockcliffe?


He's been playing with pumps for a while but i guess you may have already spoken to him. Saw his pump up in cliffhanger this weekend.

 

[Mark]

We had an Earby pump in the wet west, you need quite a lot of room to operate it, and its bloody hard work, its also a bloody brilliant bit of kit.

How far is the sump from the entrance, I have quite a lot of 32A - 110v cable and several 110v sludge pumps the blurb reckons 500litres per minute, 100mtrs should be no problem

 

[Simon Wilson]

Mark, thanks for the compliment and remember - there is only one EPC!

 

[Leclused]

Hi,

We are getting ready to pump the newly discovered Rowter Hole Sump in Derbyshire. I have been advised that the Ireby sump buster is a great solution and ideally suited to our needs down there. I was wondering if anyone has some advice on building (or borrowing) one of these systems?
We are restricted to getting about an 8ft length of rigid pipe down there because of two corners- not sure if that makes any difference though.

The current plan is to divert the stream away from the sump and pump out behind a dam which will be about 20m away and 3-4m higher.

Any help will be gratefully received.

Cheers
Mark (Buttered Badger Potholing Club)

First a question : is the sump being passed by divers already?

If so then here is a brief set-up of how our club pumped a large sump in a stream more then 25 times.

- Divers pulled a firehose through the sump (large diameter)
- upstream a dam was build and the river was canalized through the firehose. In our case the dam was approx 110m away from the sump so a lot of firehoses were used. AND
- Just before the sump there was an y-connection with a valve
- a pump then pumped the sump into the Y-connection and the water of sump is pumped into the firehose were the river is running through
Some info in dutch with some pictures
- 220v cable from outside (several hunderd meters) + generator

http://www.scavalon.be/avalonnl/discov/Fagnoules/fagnoules04.htm
and
http://www.scavalon.be/avalonnl/discov/Fagnoules/fagnoules05.htm

Explantion of the photo with the hoses :
The large orange hose comes from the dam and contains the river (50m3/hour). The gray pipe is coming from the pump in the sump and goes then in the orange hose. The valve is situated where the hand of the caver is. The length of the sump was about 15m and deepest point -3m.

Wen the sump was pumped dry we started to drill holes in the ceiling te eliminate the sump It tooks us more then 2 years to eliminate the sump

After 2 years of breaking this sump was history. We repeated this method for 2 other sumps downstream, approx 500m into the cave.

More info and tips ==> PM please

 

[Mark R]

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments so far.

In response to some of the questions and in no particular order-

The sump would require around 200m of cable from the surface (I would estimate, possibly more).
The sump has not been passed by a diver, it became too tight after 6m. The mud floor came up to the roof and this would require digging as we drain the sump.
We will be diverting the stream that enters into a higher level flooded passage unrelated to the piece of cave that contains the sump. We know this is self draining but still aren't sure if it will take all the stream water yet let alone the contents of the sump. If not, we will have to pipe the water around 100+m along a narrow passage.
I am talking to Henry at the moment and we are both going down tomorrow night to start the damming. Henry helped us out with diverting the Hypothermia passage water a couple of years ago and did an awesome job.

My current thinking is battery pump to help with some of the volume from the sump and one or two hand pumps with some enthusiastic Badgers, supplemented with a smattering of Liverpool and Sheffield student cavers (although they don't know that yet!).

Is there anyone, or are there any clubs in Derbyshire, with access to suitable hand pumps (apart from a sump buster)? Having never used one underground I don't know what type of pump would work best. Any advice on that?

 

[Bottlebank]

What height above the sump is the higher level passage?

 

[nickwilliams]

I have several Whale hand pumps in stock at Hucklow Digging Supplies. Henry knows the details.

 

[NigelG]

The physics that make the Ireby Pump such hard work is more than the mere weight of water. It's also atmospheric pressure opposing the piston as drawing it up produces a partial vacuum below it.

Add to that the suction head (10m depth = 1Bar).

When Pete Hann & I built an Ireby Pump, using 100mm plastic soil-pipe, for Portal Pool in Charterhouse Cave I tested it at home, in a bucket of water, and was startled by just how much effort is needed. Originally the Charterhouse team raised the water to a sinking pool at a slightly higher level; now it's used to start a syphon running down the artificial Sand Dig bypass that protects the Frozen Cascade & Timeline.

There the head is low, as in Ireby, but you still have a considerable resistance.

If you want to move a lot of water uphill by more than the very low height limit of these two sumps, you are better off with a pump fitted with a lever for better mechanical advantage at cost of shorter piston stroke. This would turn the Ireby pump (a simple lift-pump with foot-valve & piston-valve) into something like the old-fashioned village pump. You could also use a force pump with two valves in the cylinder base, again with lever, not needing to be submerged and pushing the water uphill through a hose. These were used in wells too deep for pure suction (10m theoretical suction head, far less in practice). Village pumps I've seen have a mechanical advantage on the handle of c. 5 or 6 to 1.

One tip - I machined the piston too accurately not realising (till Pete told me) that extruded plastic pipe isn't very accurate. So make the piston a slightly sloppy fit and rely on the action of the rubber-disc valve-diaphragm to give the necessary peripheral seal.

Fit an inlet strainer. That on the Charterhouse pump consists of a length of 50mm plastic pipe drilled with about 130 holes each 8mm dia. (I used a small lathe to set them out neatly.)

Nick Williams advocates Whale ( or similar) diaphragm pumps; used successfully in many digs over the years. They were developed to handle reasonably dirty water such as in building-site excavations and boat bilges,  but still fit an inlet strainer. They are a form of force-pump.

 

[Mark R]

Thanks very much for the help and advice everyone. I think we have a solution now which we will be trying out in the next couple of weeks. Watch this space.

 

[Gerbil007]

Just in case this is still relevant, I have managed to pump a sump empty using a combination of dams and Whale Gusher manual bilge pumps.