What is pump head height?

15 Jun What is pump head height?

This is a tricky calculation, however put simply it is a measurement that shows how powerful the pump is to deliver water.

Lets say you have a new pump from the hardware shop and you have connected it to your water tank. On the box it says 100L/ min.

(ie 100 litres per minute). This means that the pump delivers 100 litres per minute at the actual discharge of the pump. Once you have connected hoses and a nozzle to the end of it you can be sure there will be less flow, but how much less?

This is where head height comes in. Usually a pump will have the head height shown on the box, in the above scenario, lets assume it has a 35 meter head height.

This means the pump can pump water up to 35 meters vertically in a pipe, but don’t forget, the higher it has to pump…the less flow it will have.

So we can do some basic math now.

10 meters of head pressure is around 1 Bar of water pressure

In a typical suburban house, the mains water off the street is around 3 Bar of water pressure.

So if we want the pump to have enough pressure to send water out the hose the same as mains water, we will need 30 meters of head.

Dont forget that the hosepipe and nozzle also adds to the “head height” so a good 10 meters extra wont hurt.

This means, the pump we have chosen with a 35 meter head, will have enough water pressure to be similar to the normal garden hose.

We still dont know if the pump water flow will still be ok, but we can work on this on another post.