Water Pump Sizing Questions
Answer these questions about your own source and demand. Together they decide the pump class and array size; guessing any one of them guesses the whole system.
| Question | Why it decides the size |
|---|---|
| What is the source: well, borehole, river or tank? | Source type decides pump placement and protection. |
| How deep is the water level, not only the hole? | The pump lifts from the water level; the drilled depth alone misleads. |
| How high must the water be lifted, and into what? | Total lift is the strongest single factor in pump selection. |
| How long is the pipe run, and does pipe already exist? | Run length adds friction that behaves like extra lift. |
| How much water is needed each day, and for what? | Daily volume sets the energy the array must deliver. |
| In which hours should the water arrive? | A daylight delivery window matches solar pumping and storage. |
| How does the source behave in the dry season? | Seasonal drop changes both lift and available yield. |
| What storage exists or is planned? | The tank, not the battery, is the storage in most solar pumping designs. |
How the answers are used
Use your answers to pick the class on the series page and confirm the configuration when you inquire. If an answer is unknown, say so: a site visit or a test pumping is a better next step than a confident guess. The planning guide explains each question in context, and the family page for the solar water pump system shows how the pieces form a system.
Before ordering, confirm minimum order quantity and lead time for your configuration.
What happens to uncertain answers
Some answers cannot be known from a desk: a new borehole's yield, a water level in a season nobody has measured, a pipe run buried years ago. Mark those answers as provisional when you send them, and say which measurement would settle each one. The sales team can then tell you which provisional answers are safe to build on and which must be measured first, and can sometimes suggest a configuration that tolerates the uncertainty, for example by leaving room in the array or the tank for what the measurement later proves. An inquiry that admits its unknowns gets a more reliable system than one that hides them behind confident numbers, because the configuration is built around the real risk instead of around a guess dressed as a fact.
Keep the answered questions with your project papers afterwards. When the system is extended, a second pump is added or the demand grows, the original sizing answers are the baseline every later decision compares against.
Measure twice, in different seasons
Where the project calendar permits, take the two underground answers, water level and source behaviour, in more than one season. A level measured after the rains is a promise the dry season may not keep, and a system sized on it will pump air or strain in exactly the weeks the water matters most. If only one measurement is possible, ask which season it represents and record the answer beside the number, so the configuration discussion can apply the caution the number deserves. Sizing is arithmetic, but it is arithmetic on observations, and observations carry dates.