How To Make a Sham Hand Water Pump

2 Materials
$30
3 Hours
Medium

Not everyone can afford to buy a real hand water pump now a days. They've become terribly expensive and I've been wanting one to turn into a water feature for ages. But, hey, we're DIY-ers so I thought I'd try and make this one using what we have at home.

I'm super impressed with how it turned out. No-one believes me when I tell them it's made from plumbing bits and PVC pipes.


So let me quickly share the tutorial with you in case you don't have the budget for the real thing too. You'll need:


  • 2 x female stop end caps 4 3/8″
  • 1 x 90-degree reducing elbow
  • A 2″ x 1 1/2″ socket reducer
  • PVC sanitary T or junction 4 3/8″ x 2″
  • PVC cement or adhesive
  • 1 1/2″ PVC pipe
  • 2″ PVC pipe
  • 4 3/8″ PVC pipe

Our hand water pump is 11 3/4″ tall excluding the pump handle with a total length of 17″. For the water pump and spout I cut the PVC pipes as follows:


The body of the hand pump



  • 4 3/8″ PVC pipe – measure and cut 2 x 1 2/8″ pieces. Adapt this if you want your hand pump to be taller.


The water spout



  • 1 1/2″ PVC pipe – measure and cut 1 x 2″ piece2″ PVC pipe – measure and cut 1 x 2″ piece. If you want to extend your water spout cut the 2″ PVC pipe longer.

To put the water pump together, insert the socket reducer into one end of 90-degree elbow and use PVC cement or adhesive to glue the 1 1/2″ piece of pipe inside. Glue the other 2″ piece of pipe into the other end of the reducer.

Putting the body of the pump together is pretty easy too. Glue the 1 2/8″ piece of the 4 3/8″ PVC pipe into the female stop end cap.

We’ll be turning the hand pump into a  water feature once it’s done so we needed to make a hole in one of the female stop end caps first. If yours is just going to be a feature in the garden you can skip this step.


To put the hand pump together add the stop end caps to both ends of the PVC sanitary T and glue the spout on. Your water pump should look something like this.

Paint the pump and we're ready to add a handle to finish this baby off. To make the handle I cut a shape out of a piece of wood using our jigsaw.

After sanding and painting we attached it to the water pump with a thread bar and nuts.

I would love to know what you think of the hand water pump.

Is it something you would make for yourself?


Pssst, you can get the full tutorial with lots of step by step instructions on the blog. The link should be down there at the bottom. And if you want to see how we turned it into a water feature you can find that tutorial here.

Resources for this project:
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Michelle Leslie
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3 of 55 comments
  • E95656 E95656 on Jun 24, 2020

    Love this!

  • Margaritakulpa Margaritakulpa on Jun 13, 2022

    My parents have a home near our city, so we go there in summer, there days they said they need a sump pump switch for our home. I bought the best sump pump float switch because this float switch is rated for up to 15 amps which should be way more than enough for almost all the sump pumps available for residential purposes. It can be customized to your liking if you want your pump to cycle frequently but leave less cord after the tether point for a short period. Suppose you have a larger pit or want the water to reach a higher level (and have the space to allow more cord after the tether point.

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