Specification for bucket
 

Howdy folks

This is a real tester for the tech heads out there.:clap:

Will have a tidy water purification system and storage tank in the Cruiser for pending departure to Africa.

If I have it, i'm going to use it.

So. I come across a well in southern Libya and want to fill up the tank.

Have never filled a bucket from a well that could be 10 or more meters deep.....

What do you rekon on choice of bucket and length of rope???

I'm thinking a steel bucket with a piece of lead on one side so it will tilt and fill.

What about rope? How much to bring..... how long is a piece of string I suppose

Anyone with experience ????

Cheers

Niallo
:mchappy:

Got back from Libya a couple of weeks ago, wish I was planning my next trip again :(

Don't know the best way to get the water out of a 10m well - I seem to remember something on a kids TV program years ago where a Crow was trying to drink water from the bottom of a long glass, but couldn't get his beak in far enough.
After a bit of thought he simply filled the glass with pebbles and the water rose to the top! Not sure if the locals would let you walk away from that one though.

On the main pistes and stop offs there's usually water available at fairly regular intervals, and the wells/springs have had stand pipes and hoses sunk into them - I don't recall ever seeing a 'proper' well anywhere.
The water could be quite brown and salty in places, especially towns like Ghadames, so we always ran anything we were going to drink through the water filter.
I think I drank more stella than water though :smile2:

Hi Funny post brings out the Ray Mears that skulks inside of me.....

NO lead anywhere near any water EVER, what happens if the lead on the bucket falls off into the well, steel bucket very handy for carrying stuff, boiling for washing clothes, making stews in etc etc etc don't worry it will sink, if not drop a few small rocks in it. You can even make an earth oven out of it at a pinch, try to get a lid to match it helps to keep heat in and dirt out.


I always carry a Length of rope: I have 50ft of black static climbing rope with at least 2 carabinas. Came in handy in every country I've ever been in, from lifting the bike for repairs, towing other people, right the way up to helping pull over a fully loaded cart that had got blown on it's side (Cambodia very windy country that one)
Also handy if you need to get out of a hotel window during fires/floods etc, a must have product.


Make sure you have a good hatchet (Gransfors).

5l plastic bucket and 10m of rope
 

You want to have some rope somewhere anyway, so take a 10 or 20 meter piece that can be used for drying the laundery and tying up whatever needs to be tied up. If the well is more then let's say 10meters, I don't think you want to take a whole lot of water out of that well, unless you feel like working out of course.

I took a metal backet once, and will never do so again. It's useless bulky rattling item that's nasty to stow and always in the way.

Most wells have somthing to get the water out anyway.

A 5l plastic bucket seems just fine to me. How do you fill it?

Here's a trick that works for all the whities that don't get the hang of flipping the bucket with swing of the rope:

Drop the bucket upside down in the well, with more slack in the rope than is needed to get it to the water. The bucket hits the water, and will come upright, but not without skooping up some water. Then lift the bucket and drop it again. This time the bucket will sink and fill completely with water.

really easy!

Most if not all wells I came across had a willing bucketier there! they also had buckets made from old tyres, heavy enough to sink light enough to lift

Graeme

think local
 

I think you must bring a plastic bag, 200 meters of rope and a white camel. Thats how the locals do it. Don't teach them other ways. It will spoil the photo opportunities!

Salam Aleikum,
Noel

How ab out a canvas bucket like this one.

You can't suck that hard.
33' = 10m =1 bar = 1 atmosphere.
You can't suck over about 0.2-0.3 bar = 6-10'. I suppose a good electric sump pump could generate ~0.5 bar = 16' suction pressure.
I carry a sump pump (now if you throw that in a well it can generate over 1 bar POSITIVE pressure, pushing upwards). Also a rope and a bucket and hose. Also lots of water - 540L.

Charlie

Well lads

I underestimated how technical the choice of a bucket can get and had a good laugh in the process!

Thats what you get for posting in the tech forum - brilliant.:thumbup1:

Charlie - how you calc'd the max sucking pressure - i'll never know

Thanks all for the replies - all thoughts and experiences noted.

Judds idea re a length of climbing rope and carabinas is a good idea!!

Julian - collabsable buckets - i've seen it all now!

Cheers

Niallo

Whatever bucket you get - get a lid for it - that way you can store things in the bucket too.

the dubbayou way
 

You can consider to do it the George W. Bush-style. Take 500 kilo explosives with you,
blast the well until you got a small lake and drive to the edge of the water. Easy!

cheers,
Noel

Don't give 'em ideas:nono::nono::nono:

Of course I didn't REALLY take him seriously but I thought I'd do a bit of education re 1 bar = 10 m water.
Way to figure out max human suction: take transparent hose, put a bucket (any spec) of water on ground, suck on transparent hose out of 2nd story window, have helper measure max height of water column. I'd guess 6-9 feet.

To take this even more seriously:
It is not (just) the lack of human suction that makes it impossible to pump (suck) up water more than 10m. It is a theoretical maximum, because the pressure above the water becomes so low that it starts to evaporise/boil (vapour presure) and the water column "breaks". No matter how good your pump you can't get more than 10m.

You would need to lower the pump into the water and make it "push up" the water to get it up from more than 10m.

I thought that's what I said, sort of...
The vapor pressure of water is 0.18 bar at 37 C. approximately (blood boils at 45,000'), but it's much lower near freezing. Plus there's no such thing as a "negative vacuum pressure", you rely on the surrounding atmospheric pressure to push the column up. Unless you have a supercollider particle accelerator to create a "mini Big Bang", to "break the vacuum".

Charlie