Passive House High Efficiency Well Pumps: Grundfos

Grundfos Submersible Well Pumps

Our passive house home is located on a multi-acre lot that does not have public water (or sewage).  As such we required an onsite well.

Having diabase soils (something that is rather unusual for our county) was a double-edged sword.  Will these soils allow for extremely good perc rates (for below-ground septic systems), the amount of rock formation can lead to hardships in obtaining a good supply of high-flow well water.

Given the (bad) luck we had had with our site development, I didn't want to leave much to chance, so we employed an old-timer water dowser.   With his divination rods (a cherry tree branch) our friend was able to locate, what he believed, was going to be our best location for digging a well.  As a side note, after some brief instruction, I too was able to dowse. 

So we hired a firm to dig our well.  We ultimately extended our depth to 500 feet.  And while the well had a good static top level, the flow rate was merely 0.25 GPM!  This was brutal. 

We then hydrofracked the well and fortunately we were able to achieve a respectable flow rate of 7.5-8.0 GPM flow rate.  The trick now was pumping that water from such a deep depth in an energy efficient way.

We selected Danish company Grundfos as our well pump manufacturer.  Grundfos makes, what we believe are, the most energy efficient well-pumps available.  Given the amount of energy well-pumps can consume during operation coupled with the frequency of use, we considered it prudent to select one that was most energy efficient, especially considering the sheer depth of our well.

Our pump came with a control panel that draws a nominal amount of electricity even while the pump is not operating.