Starting a Ram Pump for the Season

After a rather mild winter its time to get the ram pump back up and running. Looks like we will be digging out some silt and finding the screen intake.

In my Hydraulic Ram Pump setup I have a screen intake that pulls water in to feed the system. This is made from 3" pvc pipe with holes drilled into it. I then take window screen and wrap it around the pipe. The water that comes into this pipe travels down a supply line to the next stage of the system.

The Bucket intake is a very important part of the ram pump build. This allows for an air free water source and keep a lot of silt out of the pump. To make this bucket I simply let water from the supply line dump into the top of the bucket. The I use a product called Uniseal to install the drive pipe midway up the bucket. One the bottom I have a drain plug that lets me drain the silt. The extra water empties the bucket and goes back to the creek.