“These are the times that try men's souls.” | My first thoughts are with a solar pump you will need to free flow water at all times, so you will need a over flow pond on this system. Second I would go with the earth mover tire, cut side wall out of it, then bury a big dia. pipe upright in ground in center of tire to bring ground heat into trough in winter. Say a 20-24" dia. X 10-12', cement the bottom of it as well as the bottom of the tire. I would also cement the outside of trough so a cow can stand on it. The ground heat pipe would only be needed if you have small number of cattle on system to help keep it from freezing when pump goes off at night, and trough is full at night.
Plumb water into trough with a HDPE 1 1/2" to 2" poly pipe, just gradually bring pipe up into center of trough, then just cut to height needed in trough or you can put fitting on and put a 90 deg. fitting on to help see how much water is flowing in pipe. Use a curb stop valve in ground away from trough say 50 to 100' so you can shut trough off or adjust flow for your overflow pipe. I would use steel or HDPE pipe also plumbed into center of trough of overflow. Use two 90 deg. fittings on it to keep junk, hair from going down line. Drill a breather hole in pipe between the two 90 deg. fitting to let air out so overflow works.
Then if needed you can make a lid for trough if needed, leave small opening for cows to drink ( really need to know how many cows on system). Or leave whole top open if a lot of cows 100 or more. Maybe half of top open?
The only frame work I would put around trough is drill stem pipes w/ a cable to keep cows out of trough for summer use, winter if you have a lot of cows.
I would also think about a converter for pump if you ever needed to run generator, but with a pond you should have plenty of water available till solar would be run.
Also can you put this system on grade to drain at night when solar goes off? Also like Galaxie 64 said put a weep hole in pipe in well casing so it drains when off at night. On a lot of our winter troughs we just plumb water inlet into bottom of trough say 3-4" above bottom so if cattle drank trough empty, power goes off, and lines are to grade. The system most likely won't freeze, as power comes back on it just goes to working.
Edited by Russ In Idaho 10/13/2011 02:35
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new well and tank setup
