Choosing a Larger Well Pressure Tank

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gforce

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I have a Well-X-Trol WX-203 – 35 gallon tank that just died. With the pressure set to 40/60 I only get about 9 gallons of drawdown and I’d like to get more.

I’ve been trying to decide between a 50 gallon (13 draw) and an 85 gallon (22 draw) tank.

I’ve been educating myself on the workings of well pumps, tanks. etc. From what I gather the only problem with going to a larger tank is the risk of going beyond the capacity of the well on each fill cycle.

The problem is that I don’t have any documentation on the well pump. (We’ve been in the house 4 years) The only thing I know with any certainty is that the well is relatively shallow; I know this from when we had the house inspected.

Having said all that, I have the following questions:

1 – Is there any way to determine what GPM my well is running?

2 – What am I risking by going to the 85 gallon tank?

3 – Is there anything else I should be considering when replacing this tank?

If more info is needed to answer these questions, let me know.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

This is an awesome site and the people are great. You’ve all taught me a lot
so far.

Thanks again
 

Waterwelldude

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Where the water comes out of the well before the tank.
Is there a union?

Take it apart.
Run the pump straight in to a 5 gal. bucket.
Time the pump on how long it takes to fill the bucket.

Do the math, and you will know the gpm of the pump you have.

ex. It takes 5 min. to fill.
You have a 5gpm pump.

Then do the same thing on the back side of your tank,(pressure side)
This will tell you if you pump can keep up with your water usage.

This will help in you tank selection. You will know what you have to work with.



Travis
 

gforce

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Thanks Waterwelldude, excellent suggestion

From there, how do I know what GPM will be enough?

50 gallon (13 drawdown) vs. 85 gallon (22 drawdown)

Thanks for your help
 

Waterwelldude

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Without knowing the yield of the well.(how much water the well will produce)
It is hard to answer that question.

We will say your well will make 100gpm. (That is the well not the pump.)
You could use as large a tank you like.
The larger the tank the better.
That would mean your pump would run less.
You would use less electricity.
The pump will (in theory) last longer.

A test you could do, is to run the pump for one hour.
Open flow. No tank, just out on the ground. It's a waste of water, but it will answer you question.

If it doesn't pump off or stop pumping water. You should be ok with the larger tank.


Travis
 

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ex. It takes 5 min. to fill. You have a 5gpm pump.

That would be 1 GPM not 5 GPM.

Tanks usually die from too much cycling. It bends the bladder back and forth like bending a wire until it breaks. Cycling also destroys you pump motor and everything else prematurely. Doubling the size of tank will only cut the cycling in half. This means it will just take twice as long to burst the bladder and destroy your pump. It use to be that the larger the tank the better but, not anymore. There are now much better ways to eliminate cycling than trying to put on enough tanks. A Cycle Stop Valve and a small tank will do things that a room full of big tank cannot do. The CSV will provide constant pressure to the house, eliminate cycling, make everything last longer, and cost less.

Even 22 gallons of water stored is not very much. The pump will still cycle 2 or 3 times just while you take a shower. Pressure tanks were never meant for storing water, only for reducing pump cycling. You have millions of acre feet of water stored in the aquifer, that is where your water is stored and comes from, not the tank. When you have a CSV to eliminate cycling, you only need enough pressure tank to keep the pump from coming on when you are just rinsing a toothbrush. The following picture is the way I would install your system, and I have tried everything possible in my 40 years experience.
 

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gforce

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Thank you both. I obviously have some more thinking and testing to do.

It makes a big difference to hear it from the experts.

So thanks again
 

Gary Slusser

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IMO you can not tell what pump you have by running water open discharge at the well. The pump is only moving water from the water level depth in the well. The gpm rating of a pump is based on the depth of the water in the well and you'll get more gpm than the pump's rated gpm until you pull the water level down to the corresponding depth on the pump chart.

Another problem with large tanks is that drawing a lot of water out of a well can cause water quality problems. And especially if the well is a low producing well.
 

gforce

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I remember reading somewhere that when a well is drilled or a pump installed that the county gets records of the installations. Is that typically true?

And would it tell me what i need to know about the well and the pump?

Just trying to make the best decision I can about what to do and get the best for my money.

Thanks
 

Gary Slusser

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Yes you would call Harrisburg and get in touch with the department that maintains drilling/drillers' records, your record may or may not be there. It will tell you the depth, at what depths water was found and how much, what the different strata levels were and possibly the depth of the pump and what gpm and hp the pump is, or maybe not.

When you increase the pressure range of the pressure switch, you decrease the draw down gallons of the tank. That decreases the time the pump is off between starts and the more starts the shorter the life of the pump and the more electricity is used by the pump. Pumps up to 1.5 hp should be off for at least 60 seconds.

You should buy a CSV and small tank from Speedpump instead of a large expensive tank.
 

Waterwelldude

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That would be 1 GPM not 5 GPM.


Talk about do the math.
I need to take my own advice.
Thanks for straightening that for me.


Never rush! That's when accidents happen. lol



When a well is run open flow. The pump will pull the water down to its pumping level, of the particular pump installed.
Not all pumps are the same,regardless of gpm on the curve.
Two pumps with the same gpm rating will not nessaseraly pump the same.

I have found one brand may pump up to 5 gpm more or less the another pump with the same rating, in the same well.
That why I say do the test on the well in question. That way anyone can tell what the pump will pump in that particular well.



Travis
 
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Gary Slusser

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Wellwaterdude, I ran the pump open discharge but used a rig with a pressure gauge, flow meter and shut off valve to be able to run the pump at the average pressure setting on the customer's switch. All the wells were 6" rock bore and rarely had a recovery rate below 10 gpm while the static level was usually 45-75'. The average depth was 150-350' with a few to 500'. Usually there was no irrigation and the owners' pumps would not draw the well down more than 50-75' and the pumps were usually set 10-15' off the bottom. I always found the pumps putting out well over their rated gpm and the vast majority were Goulds.
 

Waterwelldude

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I agree with ya there. Gould's are good pumps. They are one of the better ones that actually do what they say.

The reason I say let the pump, pump open flow, is. As pressure increases, the flow does drop some.
When the test is over. the amount of water that that pump will move,at a given time, at it's least restricted flow, is the amount of water the well owner now knows he or she can not exceed, with house hold uses, or for irrigation, or any combination of the two.

We have had engineered wells that need 75gpm. Along with the flow chart for the pump. They also need the real time pump flow.
The pump is ran for one hour.
Every 5 min. the flow is checked to ensure the pumping rate of the 75gpm requirement.
We have had pumps in the past that would not do what the chart said they would do.
Each well has there own set of circumstances that may affect flow, pipe,water level,depth of pump setting, draw down of the well.

As you know, some of the box store pumps are not what they say they are.

Using the flow chart as a guideline for pump selection is fine. It is a good place to start,as most are very close.
The pump co's have done a lot of testing to come up with those charts.

The open flow test, just lets us and the owner know the well we drilled will make the amount of water we said it would.


Travis
 
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