Garden pumps
A pump has two hard numbers and neither of them is the one on the front of the box. Suction height is a physical limit: a water surface deeper than the stated figure cannot be reached by a surface pump at all, whatever its power. Head is how far it will push once it is moving. The litres per hour everybody quotes is measured at zero head, which is a condition no garden ever presents. These six are sorted on the numbers that decide the job.
Every pump on this shelf leads with litres per hour. Across these six: 5 000, 5 000, 5 200, 4 500, 3 300 and 3 000.
And every one of those figures is measured at zero head — with the water going nowhere uphill and nothing resisting it.
No garden presents that condition. Water has to come up out of a well or a tank, along a hose, and out of a nozzle or a sprinkler, and every metre of that costs.
So the headline figure is a laboratory maximum. The two figures that decide whether a pump works are underneath it.
Across these six: 9 m, 8 m, 8 m, 7 m, and two that do not publish one.
This is the figure to check before anything else, and it is worth understanding why it is not negotiable.
A pump does not pull water up. It cannot. What it does is create a low-pressure space, and the atmosphere pushes water into it from below.
Which means the ceiling is set by atmospheric pressure, not by the motor: about 10 metres at sea level, in theory, and 7 to 9 in practice once pipe friction and the pump’s own efficiency are accounted for.
A water surface one metre deeper than the stated figure is a pump that will not prime, and no amount of power changes that. The answer for a deep well is a submersible pump, which pushes from below rather than sucking from above — a different product entirely.
Measure from the pump to the water surface at its lowest in August, not to the top of the well.
Across these six: 50 m, 48 m, 45 m — published as 4.5 bar as well — 43 m at 4.3 bar, 35 m at 3.5 bar, and 3.5 bar on the last.
Head is how far the pump will push water upward once it is moving, and it converts directly into pressure: roughly 10 metres of head to 1 bar.
Which is why the listings that publish bar as well as metres are the more useful ones. A sprinkler is specified in bar, and this site’s sprinkler shelf shows what that means: one product there publishes its coverage at 2.8 bar and again at 4.1 bar, and the diameter nearly doubles between them.
So a pump at 3.5 bar and a pump at 5 bar are not slightly different. They are the difference between a sprinkler covering a small circle and covering a large one.
This is the part no listing on this shelf explains.
Maximum flow is at zero head. Maximum head is at zero flow.
A pump rated 5 000 l/h and 50 m delivers neither in use. It delivers some pair of values on the curve between them, and the curve is what a pump actually is.
Nothing on this shelf publishes one. So the practical reading is: halve the flow figure in your head for any real installation, and treat the head figure as the ceiling above which nothing comes out at all.
One listing here is unusually concrete instead: it states that the pump will run one to three sprinklers. That is the most useful sentence in this family, because it is an answer rather than an input.
Three of these publish one: 24 L, 19 L stainless, and 19 L steel.
A booster pump with a vessel does not start every time a tap opens. The vessel holds a few litres under pressure, and a small draw — a watering can, a short rinse — comes out of the tank while the motor stays off.
That matters because of wear. An electric motor’s hard moment is starting, and a pump that starts and stops forty times while somebody fills four cans is doing forty hard moments. A larger vessel means fewer.
Stainless matters too, and two of these say so. A painted steel vessel rusts from the inside, where nobody looks, and rust flakes end up in the diaphragm and in the sprinkler nozzles.
Across these six: stainless pump housing on four, a stainless shaft with brass threads on one, and Noryl hydraulics on another.
The two that matter:
Brass threads rather than plastic ones at the ports. A pump is connected and disconnected every spring and autumn, with a spanner, and plastic threads round off and then will not seal.
A stainless shaft. The shaft runs through the seal between the motor and the water, and it is the part that corrodes and then destroys the seal. One listing names it specifically.
Connections. Two of these six publish a port size — R1 inch male at 33.3 mm and G1 inch — and one publishes a 1 inch female thread. Three publish nothing, and the port thread is what decides whether a pump connects to a hose you own without a trip for adapters.
Weight. Not one of them states it, and a pump is carried to a well, lifted onto a stand and brought in for the winter — which is the one job nobody plans for and which decides where the pump can live.
1 200 W, 5 000 l/h, 45 m / 4.5 bar, 9 m suction, stainless
A stainless jet pump with a 9 m suction height — the highest here — a Noryl hydraulic unit and an anti-vibration handle.
Best for: Drawing from a deep cistern or a well, where the lift is the binding constraint
1 200 W, 5 000 l/h, 50 m head, 8 m suction, 19 L stainless vessel
A 19-litre stainless vessel with an automatic pressure switch, 5 000 l/h and 50 m of head, on a stainless pump body.
Best for: A permanent rainwater or well supply where the water is drawn in short bursts through the day
4 500 l/h, 48 m head, 24 L vessel, stainless housing, 1–3 sprinklers
A 24-litre vessel, a mechanical seal system, an electronic pressure switch, and a non-return valve and thread tape in the box.
Best for: A permanent installation on a cistern or a well, supplying one to three sprinklers
800 W, 5 200 l/h, 43 m head, 4.3 bar, 8 m suction, 19 L steel tank
A pressure vessel set rather than a plain pump: 19-litre steel tank, pressure gauge, and it starts and stops itself.
Best for: Supplying an outside tap or an irrigation system from a cistern, where the pump should run on demand
600 W, 3 000 l/h, 3.5 bar, stainless shaft, brass threads
An entry pump with a stainless shaft, brass thread connections, 3.5 bar and two G1" nipples supplied.
Best for: A first pump for hose and sprinkler use, where getting it connected matters as much as the figures
600 W, 3 300 l/h, 35 m head, 3.5 bar, 8 m suction, G1"
3 300 l/h, 35 m head, 3.5 bar and an 8 m suction height, with G1" suction and delivery ports.
Best for: A medium garden watered from a butt or a cistern, where the numbers need to be checkable before buying
Suction height, and it is not negotiable. A surface pump does not pull water up — atmospheric pressure pushes it into the space the pump evacuates, and the theoretical ceiling is about 10 metres at sea level. Real pumps manage 7 to 9, and the figures here are 7, 8, 8 and 9 m. A well one metre deeper than the rating is a pump that never primes.
Because they are the two ends of the same curve. Maximum flow is measured at zero head — water going nowhere uphill — and maximum head at zero flow. A pump rated 5 000 l/h and 50 m delivers neither of those in a garden; it delivers some intermediate pair, and no listing on this shelf publishes the curve between them.
It stores a little pressurised water so a small draw is served by the tank rather than by starting the motor. Three of these publish one — 19 L, 19 L and 24 L — and the reason it matters is wear: a booster pump that switches on and off continuously for every watering can is a pump with a short life.
Only if it delivers pressure and volume at the same time, which is the pair the specifications do not give. One listing on this shelf is unusually specific about it and states one to three sprinklers, which is the most useful sentence in this family — everything else has to be inferred from a head figure in bar.
For : Drawing from a deep cistern or a well, where the lift is the binding constraint
Main strength : The highest suction height on the shelf, at 9 m
Main limitation : No connection thread published
For : A permanent rainwater or well supply where the water is drawn in short bursts through the day
Main strength : The highest head on the shelf, and a stainless vessel rather than a coated one
Main limitation : No connection thread published, on a machine intended to be plumbed in
For : A permanent installation on a cistern or a well, supplying one to three sprinklers
Main strength : A non-return valve and thread tape in the box — the two things an installation always lacks
Main limitation : The motor rating is not published, alone on this shelf
For : Supplying an outside tap or an irrigation system from a cistern, where the pump should run on demand
Main strength : A pressure vessel and a gauge, so the system holds pressure rather than running continuously
Main limitation : The flow is stated as 5 200 l/h in the title and 5 000 l/h in the features
For : A first pump for hose and sprinkler use, where getting it connected matters as much as the figures
Main strength : Two G1" double nipples in the box, so the pump connects to female-threaded fittings out of the carton
Main limitation : No head in metres and no suction height published
For : A medium garden watered from a butt or a cistern, where the numbers need to be checkable before buying
Main strength : Flow, head, pressure and suction height all published — the complete hydraulic picture
Main limitation : No housing or impeller material published
Head-to-heads already published between two models from this guide or this aisle.
The models here come from the catalogue of this site. Specifications are those published by the manufacturer and on the Amazon product page; prices are what Keepa reported on the date below, and both move. The ranking uses declared specifications, the balance of stated strengths and limitations, and price. No product on this site has been physically tested, and nothing here claims otherwise.
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A mower gets bought when the grass is already too long, which is the worst possible moment to weigh up a price: demand on this shelf climbs from March and drops away after July, so a price struck through in May tells you nothing whatever about what the same reference cost in October. UniverTrack keeps a week-by-week record for each retailer, so a cut price can be set against one somebody really paid rather than one composed for the banner — and it says when ordering is genuinely the moment.
