Hacking our ram pump

Don't get me wrong, we are tickled with our Folk ram pump. It has been pumping away for over 5years with virtually no problems. One of the inconveniences, however, was the need to charge the system with air every month. This is due to the fact that Folk pumps have a permeable membrane in the air chamber. Other pumps, that I've read about not seen personally, use a snifter valve to keep the chamber pressurized. The down side to this is a loss in efficiency, but then you don't have to add air monthly.

Well, I think we've figured out a way to work around this issue. Recently we discovered that our permeable membrane had totally broken. This occurred because we didn't get around to pressurizing the chamber often enough. When we went to replace it, it came over us that if we could get a non-permeable membrane in place, one might never have to add air again. The trick is getting the pressure equalized on both sides of the membrane while your setting things up, without bursting the membrane. You can't see inside to tell what's going on.

What we did, was to fill the lower part of the pump with water, then place a non-permeable membrane between this and the air chamber. The purpose of the water was to create a backing for the membrane while we pressurized the chamber. Once chamber was reassembled, we started to fill the chamber with air. We knew our operating pressure was between 95-100psi, so we slowly pumped up the chamber to that pressure. When we opened the feedline with it's back pressure, everything was equalized. We didn't hear any "pop" noise, and figure we now have a non-permeable membrane in place, the pressure set, and will never (or mostly never) have to add air again. So far, 3 days into it, it's looking good. If it's still running smoothly 3 months, 6months... from now, then we'll know we've got it.