I alway knew there was a upper limit to this but I never really gave any though to the exact reason or the uppermost distance. Now I know.
The key to understanding this is realizing that suction is not a force, but simply removing an opposing force to the force of air pressure which is already there.
When you stick a pipe down a deep hole into a pool of water at the bottom of a well, air inside the pipe is pushing down on the water in the pipe, and air outside the pipe is pushing down on the water outside the pipe, which in turn pushes up on water inside the pipe. All is in balance.
But now lets say you suck out the air inside the pipe. The water is pushed up the the same as it was before, but there is no counter acting force pushing the water down, so it begins to rise inside the pipe.
So far so good, but why does the water stop rising? Well the water is pulled down by gravity; the more water in the pipe the more it weighs. Since the force of the air outside the pipe is not changing, eventually the weight of the water is equal to the air pressure outside the pipe, and everything is in balance again.
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Atmospheric pressure at sea level is 29.92 inches (approx. 76 cm) of mercury. This is equivalent to a column of water 406.7 inches or 33.9 feet (approx. 10.3 m). Therefore, a total vacuum could only pump water from a depth of just under 34 feet or 10.3 meters.
via physlink.com