Dry mounted pump

Dry mounted pump

Dry mounted pump, is it easy?

We get asked can I have a dry mounted pump, or pump in a remote location?

		Here you can see a pump working but the return water is via a long pipe. You may also notice the inlet is also via a pipe. These pictures were taken in a small testing pool.

		If you mount your pump above the water level as we did in this picture, when you switch on the pump this is what happens. ................. Nothing. This is because these pumps are not self priming

		Even when the pump is below the water level it will still start slowly

		Once it has started we lifted the pump out and put it on the side. As you can see it is working. But is it a good idea?

Well the answer is no, not if you have it set up as we have shown. Look at the two pictures below (smaller versions of the ones above) You can clearly see there is a greatly reduced difference in the flow rate. Imagine what it would be like if the inlet pipe was longer.

Also it is worth noting that this test pool has 100% clean water. (Nothing to get sucked up the inlet pipe) There is also more strain put on the pump which will reduce its lifespan.

It is possible to dry mount one of these pumps, but it must be mounted below the water surface, and the intake pipe must be at least 40mm (which this pipe is) If you have a normal 12mm or 15mm pipe for the inlet the flow will be so slow and it will put an immense strain on the pump. You may be thinking of using a non return valve in the suction pipe, so that once it has started when the power is switched off and later on again the pump will continue, as mentioned these are not self priming pumps and the non return valve will only serve to restrict the flow even more.

As they say on a well known TV show "We do these experiments so you don't have to"

You may ask how do large commercial fountains work if you can not see a pump? The answer is the pumps are dry mounted in a remote pump chamber, but they use bigger pumps and large diameter pipes to compensate.

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