Just another thought.
I misread the original question and assumed he already had a working pressure system and just wanted to supply water to an open tank. That would be no different than a bathroom stool, which is an open tank with a float valve. Now I see where he wants to switch a pump on and off to control the fill.
Another avenue might be to just go ahead and install a pressure tank with associated pump switch so you have a real water system. Then Cecil would have water supply at any tap point he wanted.
Then a simple float valve would control the water to his open tank, but he could add any number of valves/circuits in the future very simply. Good for future projects.
If he is trying to turn on and off a 2 horsepower pump to only supply a few gpm, that is akin to filling up your tea glass with a fire hose. Cycling that big of pump each time a small amount of water is not going to be economical electric wise or good for the life of the pump motor, IMO.
Am I off base here?
No idea as I don't know squat in this area. LOL Hence why I was asking JKB and others if they had ever heard of the set up I was interested in. Thanks for your response. I was hoping I'd get lucky and someone was already doing this with a irrigation system or something, and it would just be a matter of relaying the info to an electrician.
I'd rather steer away from a pressure tank as it would have to be very large or several in a series to not have the pump kick on so often. Even with my home well it's bad enough with two large pressure tanks as the pump seems to be kicking on all the time.
My thoughts were to make the reservoir large enough (in this case a lined pit which I have now but smaller) so that the pump only kicks on every 24 hours to fill up the pit when it goes down far enough. Flow would still be 45 gpm from the well pump but it would only have to kick on once a day. There would be a gravity flow off the pit at 2 gpm 24/7. The pit will be about 5 feet above in elevation of the water exit into the pole building, which will be farther down the property. The discharge from the pit will be low enough that there will be discharge as long as there is water in the pit. Discharge can be regulated with a gate valve at the exit point. Or perhaps another type of valve as I'm finding gate valves aka knive valves eventually leak. Perhaps two valves as a back up in case one fails.
