Water pump

Adrian, It's a good idea to have separate tanks for drinking water and washing water. There is also an additional advantage in that not all your eggs are in one basket in the event of a leak.
In order to "suck up water from a creek" you need a Positive Displacement Pump rather than a Centrifugal Pump which needs to be primed. The most convenient type of positive displacement is probably a Diaphragm Pump such as this.

It's unlikely that any of the smaller/cheaper pumps will self prime at those lift requirements, You might be better advised to go for small submersible that you can drop in the water to pump it up.

We use a diaphram type pump or pressure pump for getting water out of a river or dam, it will push it at about up to 30m distance and a lift of up to about 8-10ft. We set the pump and its battery and 400mah solar panel beside the water and run a hose up to a tap near our camp...turn on the tap and the pump fires up and we have water. No carrying buckets, the solar panel keeps the 40ah battery charged up ...the pump has a around about a 4ah usage rate..cheers

I think it is a Flojet, but either one works the same and you do not need to spend a lot , a model that pumps about 4- to 5l a miniute is o.k ours fills a 9 litre bucket in a couple of minutes , we use the blue air hose from river to tap, same into the river with a filter of sorts on the end in the water...cheers

I have been doing this for a number of years now and learned what works and doesn't work with some pain and expense.

There are a number of components that are necessary. I hope I can explain it all.

1)The pump obviously. A 12V caravan pump is perfect. You will need a good one with a cutoff switch and 45 - 80psi and about 6 or more l/min is good. The higher the PSI the higher you can lift the water, but the higher the current draw. I have found 45PSI is the minimum to get any decent flow.
2)Hoses to where you need to water. You can use any garden hose. I have found that you need about 30 - 40m to get to where you would typically have a kitchen or camper. I have 2 of these flat roll up hoses
Use brass connectors. I also have a garden trigger jet.
3)A battery and solar panel. Your pump needs to be near the river and less than about 3m above it, therefore you need to put a battery next to the pump, I use the 7AH SLA batteries ( ebay, jaycar etc). You will also need a 10W panel to keep it going over a weekend. The pumps are 5 - 8 Amps while running. Use a 8-10m lead on the solar panel, its often shady near the river.
4)Below the pump you need a length of garden hose, about 4-5m is good. On the end you need 2 filters, one course one to filter out stones, and one fine one to filter out sand / dirt. Without these your pump will only last 3 - 4 trips. I put the pump on the river bank and chuck the hose and filter end into the river or wedge it under a rock if it's flowing quickly.

I connect mine up to a Companion HWS and have endless showers! Once I had 12 people back to back having showers in the high country.

It's not cheap and you have to experiment a bit but I love it and now I hate scrambling down the river bank to get water, especially after drinks, rain, at night or especially all of the above

Interesting observations.

-I had the hose freeze up on one ocassion.
-If you are quick there is enough hot water in the hose to have a shower some afternoons.
-Hoses and stuff can take up a lot of space. I got a small 1/2 OD hose for the section that goes into the river.
-It takes 10 mins to set up or tear up.

Hi Adrian. Good question. One I have been pondering also, so I read the replies with interest.

Water is always the biggest limiting factor when free camping. I would like to be able to park beside a fresh water source (dam, river, etc) and replenish my three 80-litre tanks. I have been wondering about how to pump it (some good answers here) and if it was possible to purify it for drinking purposes (?)

I wonder what the advantages/disadvantages are between submersible and non-submersible pumps?

Gavin

Morning,
Would just like to add two items which have been left off.
1, one way flow valve, this will stop the pump emptying when shut off (goes on end of hose in water source.
2, in line filter, to stop debris entering the pump, shurflow, johnson, flowjet and flowking are all diaphram pumps, which do not debris very well.
I have used shurflow and flowking pumps for the last 10 years for the under bonnet heat exchanger, would not use anything under 11lpm for the shower, the amount of draw on the battery for 2 people to shower will not flatten your battery. The larger the pump, the longer the draw and greater head they will push.
Tony F8

I use one of these for rapid lift of water when camping, and I use it at home to pump out the standpipe from under the pool.

Just beware there are cheaper units around but they don't pump anywhere near the head and they only have 50% duty cycles.

https://www.whitworths.com.au/main_itemdetail.asp?cat=133&item=67217&intAbsolutePage=&LinkedItem=67215&search123=

Current: 12V (6amp)
Head: 32ft (9.7m)
Flow rate: 500 gph (1920 lph)
Rating: Continuous
Outlet id hose: 3/4" (19mm)
Pressure: 14psi (0.96bar)
Body: POM
Length: 6.5" (165mm)
Diameter: 1.5" (38mm)
Cable Length: 13ft (4m)
Weight: 1.1lbs (500g)
Liquid: fresh & Sea Water / Diesel
Operating Temp
Diesel to (40°C)
Water to (80°C)