Deep well pump (?) problem

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wendell burton

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I have a 6" well, 415' deep. 10 yrs old.
Recently replaced the waterlogged pressure tank and pressure switch. For the past month everything worked great. Possibly slightly more pressure than before.
I have 3 outdoor hydrants off this well. One is slightly uphill of the well head. The second is slightly downhill and the third is a bit more downhill. When I open the uphill hydrant I get a small burst of water and then nothing for about 60 seconds and then another burst. If I open the hydrant farthest downhill it will operate about right and then I can get water from all 3 hydrants. Once all the hydrants are flowing I can shut off the downhill bib and the uphill will continue to flow. If I shut it off then it will not 'restart' without going back to the downhill hydrant. Seems like I'm losing 'prime' even though it is a submersible pump. I thought about adding a check valve at the well head.
I've got a fair amount of experience with deep wells as I have three but I've never had this problem.
Ideas??
 

wendell burton

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Follow up:
It's difficult to track what may be the problem due to equipment locations. The breaker is in my shop. The well head is 100' away along with the pressure tank and switch. The 3 hydrants are about 100' away from each other and the well head. Once I got the well uncovered I found the switch in the closed (or running) position but no water. If I manually operate the pressure switch I get nothing, open or closed. When I let go of it it goes back to running position but no water. Periodically, on its own, it will click open and closed for a second and I get the splat of water. If I flip the breaker I get plenty of water every time I trip it. Seems like the pump is working fine. Maybe a bad switch? The pressure tank feels like it has about the right amount of water in it. Not so heavy (like a waterlogged tank) but not empty either.
 

wendell burton

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Lastly- Since I use this well for light irrigation and watering livestock, I don't have a pressure gauge on it.
Also thinking the small riser into the pressure switch may be partially blocked. I cleaned it when I put the new switch on.
 

wendell burton

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The only check valve is on the pump at the bottom around 415'. I sure hate to pull it.
 

wendell burton

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Go figure... Drained the system and pulled the switch off. Checked the pressure on the tank. Should have been at 28 lbs. It was sitting on 41. Reset that. Blew out the switch. The riser was clean. Put it all back together and it works fine. ??? I reckon my question now is why did the tank pressure go up? Unless it wasn't set properly at the factory...
 

Reach4

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Go figure... Drained the system and pulled the switch off. Checked the pressure on the tank. Should have been at 28 lbs. It was sitting on 41. Reset that. Blew out the switch. The riser was clean. Put it all back together and it works fine. ??? I reckon my question now is why did the tank pressure go up? Unless it wasn't set properly at the factory...
Good going on the troubleshooting.

most likely wrong from the factory. You could measure how much draw down you get from the bladder by turning off the pump when it hits 50. Measure output from a faucet using buckets until the pressure is down to 30. Compare that to your expectation, which would typically be 30% of nominal tank size. The reason I suggest this is that a tiny hole in the bladder could possibly get the "empty" pressure up to 41 even if it started at 28. The extra pressure would come from water on the wrong side of the bladder.

Incidentally, if you want to modify a post, you can click "Edit post".
 

Valveman

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The reason I suggest this is that a tiny hole in the bladder could possibly get the "empty" pressure up to 41 even if it started at 28. The extra pressure would come from water on the wrong side of the bladder.

Anytime the air pressure in the tank increases by itself, the tank bladder is busted as Reach is saying.
 

wendell burton

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Yeah, I reckon I'll check tank today to see what I'm getting at shut off before I cover this thing back up. I may need to check it over several days to a week or more since it was all new and installed about a month ago. Still under warranty and purchased at a supply house vs a big box. Great service and people there.
Thanks to everyone.
 

wendell burton

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Seems the new (3-11-14) tank is leaking inside. After the first go-round on April 29th I have let the system sit as-is and used it as I normally do. Today I drained all pressure of the system again and the tank pressure was up to 34psi (from 28). Six lbs above the setting from 9 days ago.
On another thread I was reading that the pressure switch may need to be adjusted since the factory settings are not always spot-on. I do not have a gauge on this rig and I figure I'll have to put one on to do this. Unless anyone knows a trick.
 

wendell burton

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Put a gauge on at the T on the tank. The new switch, 30/50, was out of adjustment. Cut in was too low at around 20lbs and it was cutting out at about 40. Adjusted it as much as possible and got the cut in to 30 but still could not get it past 40. Swapped out the new switch for the old one. Got it adjusted to 30/50 with no problem. So, I opened a bib and let it run for 30 minutes. Watched and listened periodically and everything looked good. After this I shut it down and drained the pressure off the system and danged if the tank wasn't back up to 32lbs (from 28). After running wide open for 30 minutes the tank gained 4 lbs of pressure. Thinking this may be a fluke I have reset the tank back to 28 and I'm going to use the system normally over the weekend.
My guys at the supply house are pretty smart (Hughes Supply) and they sound stumped. But they're looking into it. They've called Gould to see what they say.
 
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