Kerosene or Crude Oil as Fuel
In recent years, internal-combustion engines which use heavy kerosene or crude oil as fuel have been introduced. These have two palpable advantages: first, they are safer than gasoline engines; second, they cost less to run, for crude oil and even refined kerosene are much cheaper than gasoline. Oil engines resemble the gas and gasoline engines, but they have larger cylinders, because the mean effective pressure evolved from the explosion is much less than that of the gasoline engines.
Oil engines for pumping water are particularly suitable in regions where coal and wood cannot be obtained except at exorbitant cost. Usually, the engine is so built as to be adapted for other farm work. It shares this advantage with the gasoline engine. Oil engines are simple, reliable, almost automatic, compact, and reasonable in first cost and in cost of repairs. There are many forms of such engines in the market. To be successful from a commercial point of view, an oil engine should be so designed and built that any unskilled attendant can run, adjust, and clean it. The cost of operating them, at eight cents per gallon for kerosene, is only one cent per hour per horse-power; or one-half of this when ordinary crude oil is used. The only attention required when running is periodical lubrication and occasional replenishing of the oil reservoir. The noise of the exhaust, common to all engines using an explosive force, can be largely done away with by using a muffler or a silencer. The smell of oil from the exhaust likewise forms an objection, but can be overcome by the use of an exhaust washer.
Steam and Electric Pumps
The well-known forms of steam-pumping engines need not be considered in detail, because high-pressure steam is not often available in country houses. Where electric current is brought to the building, or generated for lighting purposes, water may be pumped by an electric pump. Electric motors are easy and convenient to run, very clean, but so far not very economical. Electric pumps may be arranged so as to start and stop entirely automatically. Water may be pumped, where electricity forms the power, either by triplex plunger pumps or by rotary, screw, or centrifugal pumps.
Pumps Worked by Hand
Space forbids giving a description of the many simpler devices used for lifting water. In small farmhouses lift and force pumps worked by hand are now introduced, and the old-fashioned, moss-covered draw-bucket, which is neither convenient nor sanitary, is becoming a relic of past times.
Reservoirs and Storage Tanks
The water pumped is stored either in small masonry or earth reservoirs, or else in storage tanks of either wood, iron, or steel, placed on a wood or steel tower. Wooden tanks are cheap but unsightly, require frequent renewal of the paint, and give trouble by leaking, freezing, and corrosion of hoops. In recent years elevated tanks are supplanted by pressure tanks. Several such systems, differing but little from one another, are becoming quite well known. In these water is stored under suitable pressure in air-tight tanks, filled partly with water and partly with air.