Snowmaking at Woodstream 2k17

My personal pet project for the summer/ fall. Last weekend, my friend who owns an excavating business removed my rather large treehouse that I built long before there was a real house on our property. He created a level surface for it below grade from the pond, and placed the building there. Now it is going to be a pump house. The building needs some minor improvements, and a coat of paint, but otherwise, it is still very solid.



I haven't exactly figured out what I am going to use as a pump. The largest residential snowmaking system on the market runs about 7.5 GPM and produces 250 cubic feet of snow an hour. I plan on exceeding that. The difficult part of it all is the electrical. I would like to have 10-15 GPM, but the electric required may be difficult to pull off. The pump house is 250' away from my service panel, and that will limit the amount of capacitance I can put on the wire due to resistance. It's going to be a project figuring this out.

I already have a sufficient compressor to make more snow, but I am planning on running some air lines next to my water pipes to mobilize my snowmaking better.  In the mean time, I am carefully tapping into the bank of the pond to extract water from it. This will have to be done in stages allowing the first part to harden around the pipe before going all the way through. I have to be careful not to damage the pond. I am trying to get an early start to keep my motivation high. I will most likely work on the pump sometime this fall.

People ask me why I do this, and if it's practical. It is not really practical, but my resourcefulness is allowing me to do it for very cheap, and I couldn't be having more fun! I hear this winter is going to be better than last, but still not that good. I am going to make it good no matter what happens.



This thread will be where I post updates on this project

Keep the updates rolling in

Ethan,thanks for the update,keep up your hard work.
That pond skim picture was fantastic.

Ethan Snow wrote

The pump house is 250' away from my service panel, and that will limit the amount of capacitance I can put on the wire due to resistance. It's going to be a project figuring this out.

Move the pump house over to the service panel significantly increasing electrical " capacitance " ? Maybe even cut electricity costs for years ?

Yes ?

No ?

Maybe ?

very cool

The pump has to be below grade from the pond. Doesn't work any other way. Good thinking though.

The pumps and motors are my thing and the only thing I can think of is to add another electrical service panel off the utility line at your pump house but this will not be cheap.

I assume instead of capacitance you mean the amount of load due to the resistive drop in the line. If that is the case you can either lower the gauge of the wire or up the voltage the pumps operate at or use step up/step down transformers to lower the carrying current. I would assume you have 220 2 phase at the box, if the pumps are 220 already then you will need to go to 440 on the line. Another option might be to build a storage tank at the top of the hill, pump the water up to it at a slower rate and then use gravity to develop the head for snow making - you could put a booster pump at the top if you needed added pressure but that would be lower power because it is working with gravity, not against it. Not an expert in this area but it seems like there are options.

That's exactly what I mean. "Capacitance" is just a technical term for load.

I have very good voltage at the panel. About 252 volts, or 126 on each leg. The motor I am using is a 230 volt motor, so theoretically, I have room for a 20 volt drop. Really the motor should have between 230, and 250 volts so 240 is a good number to shoot for.

A storage tank will freeze Einstein. The pond is mid-mountain, and I'm only pumping about 100' head, so not a huge deal.

I know what I need to do, it's just a matter of swallowing the price tag on that copper wire. A Gas engine is another option, but I am trying to stay from that because they are noisy, and will be more expensive to run. I still have my old gas pressure washer which I will continue to use as well to increase snowmaking capacity.

Ethan Snow wrote

A storage tank will freeze Einstein.

Actually no - possibly you will get some freezing on the walls but it will take a lot for it to freeze solid particularly if it is on the ground. Drive around, see all those standing pipe tanks - you think the water is frozen dumb ass.

Ethan Snow wrote

 

I have very good voltage at the panel. About 252 volts, or 126 on each leg.

 BTW - is the 252 volts open circuit measured with a volt meter? It will drop once you throw a load on it. National Grid usually specifies it as a 240 volt service.
You should also consider that National Grid will fluctuate their voltage a fair bit during the day and if you are going for a motor over about 5HP you had better consult this document (if you are on National Grid) https://www9.nationalgridus.com/niagaramohawk/non_html/constr_esb750.pdf

I'm on NYSEG. The 252 volts is at the pannel. I've measured it at the end of a line as well, and it's always above 240. Or 120.

 It will most likely be a 5 HP motor. Although, I have an extra honda engine sitting in my garage, and I may end up using that. It will cut the cost of a motor and expensive Copper wire.

Ethan Snow wrote

 A storage tank will freeze Einstein.

Hehehe. P T Einstein...

Anyway, hold up, not all of them freeze up. Outdoor storage tanks are common. Depends on their size/ flow rate etc. As long as it didn't  " sit full " for long periods.

A storage tank is out of the question anyway. I don't want to complicate the system by pumping the water twice. With my vert it won't make much of a difference anyway. I have a 120,00 gallon pond which is my storage tank.

We faced a similar issue with the cabin. It's 500+ feet from the road and the choice was either expensive copper wire or a transformer.  I was convinced to go with the wire.  No need to deal with the power company or have power company equipment on our property.  We buried the line, for us I think it was the right decision.

And it definitely looks better than having a pole near your cabin in the woods. How many amps do you have at your cabin? is it a full 200 for a future home?

Now I'm getting high pressure pump ads on this website.

Yes we went for 200 amps.

Also having it underground keeps the power flowing in an ice storm or if lines are down it is the power company's responsibility.

Yeah, we have a 4/0 running underground as well. Although it's only about 200'. Thankfully I only have to get 20 amps down to the pump house. A 6AWG will do, but it's  still pricy.

Ethan. Go big!!  I'm roadtripping from Roxbury to Woodstream next winter!!