Simer water pressure booster pump

Anyone here have experience with or knowlege of a Simer brand water pressure booster pump? I haven't found enough info to be sure how it regulates pressure or how well it regulates pressure. Is there any reason why I shouldn't install a Simer water pressure booster? What about an air backed neoprene bladder tank along with the Simer to help stabilize the system and reduce starts and stop (short run) problems?

Although I have well water plumbed into the house (for just in case) I ordinarily have the house connected to the rural water system which often has lousy (low) pressure that fluctuates considerably. I seldom adjust the shower head and note the current water pressure by where on the far wall the stream hits or how far short it falls. I also have a couple pressure gages that don't agree with each other but suggest that pressure sometimes drops below 20 PSI (static). I want something like about 45 psi +/- 5 psi or so (I think.)

I'm not stuck on Simer but can get one for $269 which seems pretty good. I am open for suggestions regarding using the Simer or alternatives to it. Most of the alternative pumps I have seen are $600 and up. I could be persuaded that a $800 pump is a better bargain than a Simer at $269 but would need to hear the reasons. Here is the model in question:

http://www.simerpumps.com/pdf/pg_18_2004.pdf

The chart they show depicts a straight 40 psi added to your pressure from 10-40 psi becoming 50-80 psi but they say there is an adjustment dial BUT leave the details more than a bit sketchy.

I want less variation in my pressure than say 40-80 lbs. It seems somehow wrong to have to put in another regulator to drop the pressure back down after paying to pump it up. If that is what it takes, then "ALRIGHTY THEN" I can do it but I am outside my comfort zone of familiarity of standard practices as applied here and need some help.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

The Simer Pump used to be a Red Jacket with a different name. Kind of like the Water Ace which is Myers name used for the sales in HD and Lowes.

The Simer Pump in your link is a European pump, all metric, tefc motor that won't last long and a unit I tried out years back that didn't work worth a darn. It was supposed to do away with tanks. YEAH RITE.

What they never tell you is; if there is no more water to be had, there is no more pressure to be had. The booster pump must be able to draw more water than is already available in the water line to increase the flow which in turn would increase pressure. At low demands, the booster pump would work. While using all you have from your water provider the booster won't help.

To answer your question about quality, the $600.00 may or not be better. I have seen some pretty expensive pieces of junk out there.

For my money, a little 1/2hp shallow well jet pump would work great, either with a flow switch or a tank, switch and Cycle Stop Valve. A good pump with no metric screws and bolts.

bob...

Speedbump, Thanks for the heads up. I don't struggle with the hydrodynamics or other theory involved, that is the easy part for me, but I don't have much breadth of actual experience with the equipment. I sure don't want to buy something that doesn't last. I tend to feel one good unit that lasts is often better than having to replace a bad one several times even if the price of the short life unit is very attractive.

I gave up on lifetime guaranteed rebuilt alternators and master cylinders bcause it was massively inconvenient to have to keep suffering problems (and associated risks) and my labor to R&R the crap.

Would you mind elaborating a bit on the cycle stop arrangement? The majority of my actual hands on experience is with a submerged pump supplying water under pressure to a bladder tank with the only control being a 20-50 psi (or whatever) pressure switch. I had actually briefly thought of a cheap shallow well pump and with pressure switch and bladder tank and now rethinking it I am attracted to the idea again. Nothing like a little confidence boost from an expert.

Unless your elaboration on the cycle stop arrangement blows my skirt up I will probably go with a bladder tank and pressure switch with the shallow well pump. I don't know if a check valve is commonly included integral to the pump but I think I would want to have a check valve on the output of the pump unless you convince me otherwise. This house is all new piping so few restrictions which makes me think a pressure switch with limits set to 35-40psi for low and 50-55psi for high would be good. Does that sound OK to you? Any guesses as to the minimum size bladder tank? I intend to get a tank larger than whatever we think a minimum is.

Thanks for your advise and preventing me from wasting $ on Simer (Italian) pump.



[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] I'm probably going to get a lot of flak for this, but let me state that in my opinion there is no substitute for hydro-pneumatic storage. Whether it is the source pump, or a booster, the advantages are many, and the only real disadvantages are cost and space.......er....the cubic feet kind of space, not outer space. [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] With pressurized storage in the system, instantaneous demand is more evenly met because some of the required flow comes out of the bladder tank, even while the long (hydraulic) supply line is still coming up to speed. The tendency for the pump to cavitate while the supply line is accelerating is thereby reduced. Obviously, the bigger the storage, the better the system works. You need to think of a long supply line as a train standing still; it takes a while to get up to speed and once that happens, the static head gives way to the net head: (static head minus the friction losses). No "super valve" ever made can compensate for and offset the inertia that is in a pipeline of water at zero flow when that water tap in the bathroom is swung wide open. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
No "super valve" ever made can compensate for and offset the inertia that is in a pipeline of water at zero flow when that water tap in the bathroom is swung wide open.

[/ QUOTE ]

But a CSV has a pressure tank to accomplish a solution to your concern, and provides constant pressure by allowing the pump to continue to run until the water usage stops which substantially reduces pump starts, which substantially reduces wear on the pump extending its life which reduces cost. All while a CSV usually costs WAY less than the smallest captive air pressure tank.
www.cyclestopvalves.com

Gary Slusser
Quality Water Associates

Dave, No complaints here! I am a believer in pressure tanks to level out pressure demands. They aren't that expensive and in a protected location should last a long time. As far as space considerations go, I can build a stout shelf if I want and get it up out of the way but don't think it is a sure thing that the effort will be required.

As my first training was electronics (even ahead of physics) I tend to think of a bladder tank as a capacitor and flow resistance like electrical resistance and it is all pretty simple. Pumps are just current and voltage sources with certain transter characteristics. Even water hammer "computes" but is perhaps a tad convoluted in an eletrical analogy.

I do like the suggestion to use a shallow well pump but the other stuff is outside of my experience. I don't know what its innards would look like and it would take some convincing (that hasn't been forthcoming) before I would adopt any valve to replace a bladder tank.

I put small pressure tanks in my RV's to reduce short cycling of the 12VDC pressure pump. Make an amazing improvement to run times as sell as reducing the variabillity in pressure when the pump is running.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] We used to call those "Pump Start and Pressure-Controlling Valves" when we installed the 6", 8", 10" and 12" sizes made by Clayton. They basically eased the starting flow into the system, regulated pressure, and slowly closed off when the demand had been met. They were eventually made obsolete by variable speed pump drives. Wether you decide to buy a "smart valve" or not, Pat, you still need a captive-air tank. The applications shown on the posted CSV web site are not exactly what you are working with in your situation, Pat since the biggest problem that you have is on the SUPPLY SIDE. it would probably make a heck of a lot of difference if all you did was plumb a good-sized captive air tank into the system close to the point of use. That would help offset the inertia problem with the supply line. Buy a nice tank and just connect it to a handy faucet as a way of checking the theory. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

Dave, Until or unless someone gives me a convincing argument regarding any system other than with a bladder tank, the proposed system mod will have one.

If inertia were my problem, flow would increase shortly after opening a valve wide. Not the case. I have variable water pressure as evidenced by the shower head's trajectory. Sometimes it is pretty acceptable and other times it is marginal.

Adding a pressure tank without a booster pump would improve initial flow when a valve is opened, especially if a lag induced by inertia (analgous to inductive reactance) were a problem. I don't have a noticible lag. The flow doesn't visibly "ramp up" after a valve is opened.

If a check valve were introduced between the source and the tank then under a no consumption condition AND varying supply pressures, the tank pressure, over time, would tend to approach the peak supply pressure experienced (like a capacitor charging through a resistor eventually charges up to the peak voltage of the charging waveform.) This would briefly give you a higher pressure and flow when a point of consumption valve were first opened but would taper off to no higher than the then extant ambient supply line pressure. The larger the tank then the longer it would take for pressure to taper off to the current supply pressure. It would take an enourmous tank to hold a higher pressure long enough for a shower, much less two consecutive ones (we don't always shower together.)

I need something like my own a 100 ft water tower filled by a pump OR I need a booster pump, check valve, and bladder tank (you can substitute a bladder tank for a water tower.

Alternatively, I can just mumble under my breath when the rural water system pressure is on the low side and complain every so often.

I would be open to hear any recommendations regarding booster pumps. I got one recommendation, buy a shallow well pump but even there I would favor a more specific recommendation RE brand, type, HP, or whatever. Booster systems are pretty expensive so I would lkke to get it right the first time.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Just time your showers to off peak usage ehh. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Pat,

The booster systems you see on the internet are nothing more than a CSV, pressure tank and a jet pump anyway. They just charge more to put them together for you in a cute little package. And they add that high quality European pump.

bob...