Note: Click the link at the bottom of the page to go to the next page in this series.
The water for the house comes from a well that's down the hill about 700' from our the house. We could have run power in the trench with the water line and used a standard centrifugal pump. Instead we decided to go solar. We bought a Shurflo pump powered by a 75 Watt, 12 V DC photovoltaic panel. It pumps only about one gallon per minute during the day and nothing at night, so water is stored in a 1550 gallon tank near the house. Average water use is 400-500 gallons per week and there's always plenty of water, even during long cloudy stretches.
To pressurize the water for use in the house, there's a 12 V booster pump and pressure tank in the basement. That pump is powered by two golf cart batteries connected in series. A battery charger plugged into our household electrical supply (from our local electric utility, aka, the grid) keeps the batteries charged. The goal, though, is to buy another photovoltaic panel to keep the batteries charged so it'll be completely independent of the electrical grid.