When the Power Grid Goes Down, Your Well Pump Stops. Here's the Backup Plan.

I get asked a version of this question a lot: what happens to my water if the power's out for more than a day or two?

It's a fair question. If you're on a well, your water depends on an electric submersible pump. When the grid stops, that pump stops. No drinking water, no cooking, no flushing, no showers. For most outages that's an inconvenience. For a long one, it's a real problem.

Outages happen, and some of them last

You don't need a worst-case story to take this seriously. The grid goes down for ordinary reasons all the time, and once in a while it goes down hard:

• Texas, February 2021. A winter storm left millions without power for days. A lot of folks also lost water when their pumps went dark.
• Ice storms. One of our Arkansas customers went two weeks without power after what he called the worst ice storm in a generation.
• Colonial Pipeline, 2021. A ransomware attack shut down a major fuel pipeline for days. It's a reminder that the systems we rely on can be knocked out by more than weather.

The point isn't to scare you. It's that outages are normal, a few of them run long, and the cause doesn't change what you need: a way to get water when the pump won't run.

A hand pump is the simple backup

A Simple Pump hand pump installs right alongside your existing submersible, in the same well. When the power's on, nothing changes. When it's off, you pump by hand.

A few things worth knowing:

• It pulls water from wells with a static water level up to 325 feet deep.
• Most installs take a few hours.
• There's nothing electronic to fail, and the standard hand pump carries a lifetime warranty on materials and workmanship.
• You can connect it to a yard hydrant or backfill your pressure tank, so the water reaches your normal faucets and fixtures.

That Arkansas customer did exactly that. After the first ice storm caught him unprepared, he added a Simple Pump tied into his pressure tank. When the next storm hit two years later, he told us he wasn't the least bit concerned.

Worth thinking about before you need it

The right time to set up backup water is on a normal day, not in the middle of an outage. If you want help sizing a system for your well, take a look at our power outage prep guide or request a quote and tell us about your well. We'll point you to what fits.

Questions? Call us at (877) 492-8711.