[Gaviotas] Bienvenue Manfred!

Thu Dec 18 07:33:45 CST 2008

As I have said many times, moving the outer pipe is a dumb idea, that's why 
no pump that I ever heard of does it that way.  I stand by that. Dave

Now, the "Sleeve pump. I don't understand it at all. First, it is not a

double action pump. It is two single action pumps. Even if it were

double action, that type pump has been around for some hundred years.

Its true that, if you use a suction type pump, you are limited to about

30 feet of water but, hardly anyone uses that type pump. They all put

the piston at the bottom of the pipe and lift the water. The old

windmill pump on my farm uses this type as do all other old pumps in the

area. So, nothing new there either.

Much is made of the "heavy piston", which this pump holds stationary by

moving the cylinder or sleeve. The piston can be made of plastic and

thus weigh less than the plastic pipe. The author says that the

friction between the piston and the cylinder in conventional pumps

makes them hard to operate. Well, the same problem exists whether you

move the sleeve or the piston. It still has to seal and that requires a

close fit. Finally, if you are pumping at 40 meters, as he says, the

weight of the water being lifted is great enough to make the piston

weight and friction irrelevant.

I don't doubt that the pump is easier to operate than it would be if

the piston moved in the sleeve. The illustration shows water moving up

the inside of an internal pipe. This pipe diameter is less than half the

diameter of the sleeve. If the pipe is 2 inch and the sleeve 4 inch, the

amount of water delivered per stroke if the piston moved in the cylinder

is 4 times that which would move up the inner pipe. This because pipe

capacity varies as the square of the diameters. No wonder it is easier!

I don't understand how the water will be pumped by moving

the sleeve up. It seems to me that the water will just squirt out the

holes in the bottom of the sleeve, the same holes it flowed in through.

For it to work you need valves and there are none. The valves open as

the sleeve descends, allowing water to enter. Then, they close trapping

the water in and delivering it.[The illustration isn't clear but, it

appears as if there is no "one way valve" in the inner pipe. If this is

so, the pipe would drain, all 40 meters of it, each time you stopped

pumping.] This is really basic stuff and it hard to see how any

reciprocating pump could work any other way.

Finally, in a conventional reciprocating pump, the piston

moves and the pipe is stationary. With this design, you would move the

outside pipe. How does that work in a hole in the ground? Is the pipe

slopping around in the mud? Why would anyone do it that way? Do you need

another pipe outside the cylinder pipe so it can move? If you do drop it

down an outside pipe, what would hold the piston stationary so that the

pipe can move up and down as the handle is operated. Wouldn't the whole

thing move? I just don't get it.

It would be easy to overlook some of these things but, they are, in

many ways, the heart of the book. They are referred to throughout as

breakthroughs in technology. If you are going to "Re-invent the world"

you ought to, at least, be able to illustrate and describe the tools you

plan to use to do that. With all the errors here, it makes me wonder

about all the rest, that I have no way of verifying.

I attended Weisman's lecture and I bought the book. I did so wanting

to believe that something significant had been discovered. I spent almost

20 years living and working in Third World countries, a lot of that

working with technology. I e-mailed Weisman with some of these

questions. Rather than try and clear things up, he simply told me that I

was the only one who didn't get it. Well, that could be but, my

questions remain. Dave Johnson

Alan: Morris at first told me that there was, unfortunately, no way to

verify if what I said was true. There surely is a way. You don't need

any more info. All I ever asked was for someone to respond to the

comments I made. Let someone go over them point by point and, if I'm

wrong, point that out. I'm not challenging anything except what is shown

and written in the book. Nothing is needed beyond that. Dave

>

> >

> ______________________________________________

>> ______________________________________________

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karl Williaume" <kwilliaume at gmail.com>
To: "Discussion relating to Gaviotas village in Colombia, their 
technologies, philosophy, etc" <gaviotas at greenbuilder.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Gaviotas] Bienvenue Manfred!

> Dave,I live in Toronto Ontario. Nobody in Toronto has a Gaviotas Sleeve
> Pump. The average citizen of Toronto is not interested in hand pumping 
> water
> from 60 meters below the surface of a dirty city. People are much more
> likely to make use of the clean, potable, and mostly tasteless city tap
> water. So it's no surprise that nobody in my neighborhood is using a
> Gaviotas sleeve pump. Does that prove that nobody "has ever seen one"??
> Where I used to live, which is rural kenya, people drank dirty water out 
> of
> a river because they had no alternative. They have an average life
> expectancy of 45 years, largely because of the effects of water borne
> diseases. Those people would be very happy to have access to the  potable
> water 60 meters below them, and would be very willing to take 5 minutes 
> out
> of their day to pump it. Gaviotas sleeve pumps now exist all over rural
> Latin America for the same reason!
> As a civil engineer, I can say for certain that the sleeve pump is not a
> "dumb idea". I can easily create a system model of the gaviotas sleeve 
> pump
> system and compare it with conventional hand pumps, and quantify the
> advantages of their innovation. Their system is significantly better than
> conventional hand pumps. An appropriate analogy is: would you rather lift 
> a
> real boulder, or a styrophome boulder from a movie set?
> If you doubt that there was "ever such a thing", check out the picture at
> http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/technology.htm
>
> Karl
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 6:22 PM, Dave Johnson <pinefarm at uniontel.net> 
> wrote:
>
>> His argument falls short when it is applied to the so called inventions 
>> of
>> Gaviotas, especially to the "sleeve pump". A pump is a pump. If it works 
>> one
>> place, it will work almost any place and yet nobody in the years since 
>> the
>> book came out has ever seen one, not even detailed plans for one. It is a
>> dumb idea and I doubt that there is or ever was any such thing.  Dave
>> Johnson
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Heath Synnestvedt" <
>> thapeloheath at gmail.com>
>> To: <gaviotas at greenbuilder.com>
>> Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 8:21 PM
>> Subject: [Gaviotas] Bienvenue Manfred!
>>
>>
>>
>>  Welcome!
>>> I don't speak French (yet) though i was born in Canada. Yo si aprendi
>>> espanol en sudamerica, pero aqui en esta lista se usa primeramente el
>>> Ingles.
>>> Like you i was captivated by Alan Weisman's book, and this past May i 
>>> had
>>> the privilege of meeting Paulo Lugari in Philadelphia.
>>> Your paragraph below:
>>>
>>>> Pienso tambien que necesitamos inventar para el nuevo siglo, un tipo de
>>>>
>>> sociedad diferente. Una communedad como Gaviotas, aunque no siendo la
>>> unica
>>> de este tipo, represente un modelo interesante de experimento.
>>>  ...represents a beautiful accord with what i heard Sr. Lugari 
>>> emphasizing
>>> in his lectures and conversations: The current state of human 
>>> development
>>> on
>>> this planet is at a point where wake-up calls are well worth acting 
>>> upon,
>>> and Gaviotas is just one model of a community creating itself as a
>>> distinct
>>> organism separate from the prevailing (unhealthy) trends.
>>>  A great number of the questions asked of this man were of what
>>> recommendations he would make for this or that situation. His consistent
>>> answer came with a good-humored smile. Gaviotas came into being in the
>>> desolate tropical plains of a country at war with itself. How to 
>>> replicate
>>> the way Gaviotas operates in Philadelphia? The specific solutions do not
>>> apply in this context. It is the model of respecting everyone's
>>> contribution, decentralization of power and authority and the creative
>>> generation of local solutions to local challenges: this is what he urges
>>> us
>>> to do. Sr. Lugari assures us that although he is seen as the mouthpiece
>>> for
>>> Gaviotas and he was instrumental in founding it, he is an ordinary 
>>> member
>>> of
>>> the group, not it's head or leader. "Leaders are for mediocre 
>>> societies,"
>>> he
>>> said on a Sunday session.
>>>
>>> Lest i get shunned or worse (it is voting day tomorrow here in the U.S.)
>>> allow me to say that i love taking direction from someone i really 
>>> deeply
>>> respect, and i enjoy asking people to do things too. On principle, then, 
>>> I
>>> don't see this as a mark of a mediocre society as it would seem Lugari 
>>> is
>>> saying. Where it really rings true to me is when force or threats of
>>> violence are employed by a leader to coerce those who follow. Then,
>>> surely,
>>> it is a mediocre society at best.
>>>
>>> This list is as you heard a great place to come into contact with people
>>> who
>>> are in this field of renewable energy systems. I am currently more of a
>>> student of life, love and wisdom than a professional in any field, but i
>>> have met several of those on here too! I suggest putting out a 
>>> simplified
>>> resume/vision message on here that may attract the attention of someone
>>> looking for a graduate of such a program as you have been doing. There 
>>> are
>>> countless opportunities available! Be specific and the right one will 
>>> open
>>> for you.
>>>
>>> Be well,
>>> Heath Emanuel Synnestvedt
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>>>
>>>
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