Gord: I am here with Jeff Irving from Awasa pumps. Jeff, you know when a customer goes into a pump professional, what kind of information do they need to give that pump professional to make sure that they are actually going to get the right kind of pump for what they are looking for?
Jeff: Great question, Gord. I come across this all the time. You know, when selling pumps, I always come across people wondering what they need to know. What the consumer needs to know is they first get to determine what flow rate they want to see. When they are building a waterfall or any kind of water feature, they got to figure out roughly what the galloon per minute is going to be, and one quick easy way to do that is to take a garden hose tuned on full blast and run it over the edge and watch that. That equals about five or six galloons a minute. And then from there, they can say I just want half of that or I want five times of that, or I want Niagara Falls. To figure out the exact galloons they need is really a tough question.
Gord: So now, I sort of know what I want it to look like. But now, do you have to know other things? Like maybe my waterfall is 4 feet high and 20 feet from my pond. Are these factors in making decision?
Jeff: Absolutely. The common mistake people make is they measure from the bottom of the pond. It is not the way to do it. You always measure from the surface of the water or the top of the waterfall. Take that elevation change; tell that information to your pump professional, and perhaps the distance that the pipe is going to run to get there because if there is any long pipe runs, they should accommodate the pipe size, and a pump professional can help you with that.
Gord: So does that actually make a difference if you are not actually going up, but you are going out? You actually have to size up a pump?
Jeff: Distance is a factor, so if you are traveling a long distance, you need to accommodate that with the larger pipe size. Generally, you are on a foot for every 10 feet of extra pipe run. So elevation is the key one. The higher the pump has to pump, the less it is going to pump. So the number on the box, this is what you are going to receive at the top of that waterfall. So there is a thing called the “pump curve” that you will find on the box and your pump professional can help you with.
Gord: Good. I see confusion happens. Now we have got three different types of pumps here. You got a sort of a small pump, jut to get people an idea of what they can get out of the performance of these pumps. What are we looking at in flow rates and the kind of usage for these pumps?
Jeff: Well again, there are different pumps for different purposes and they make everything from little tiny pumps the size of a matchbox to go on table top fountains, two pumps to drive small pre-formed ponds or for all type of fountains into large ponds with big display features on them, or pumps like this to do waterfalls and that they all put out different amounts of water flow at different head heights as well, so we size them up.
Gord: Okay. So if I come in and I say I want five galloons per minute and it goes up four feet and it is 20 feet away from my pond, and go to a pond professional and they can say, “I know exactly what to do”.
Jeff: Excellent, you have done a right job.
Gord: Perfect, thanks Jeff.
Jeff: You are welcome, Gord.
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