New house, heat and well pump questions

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hellspcangel911

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Hi All,
Long time reader, first time poster. Love the forum, lots of great advice and troubleshooting help here, all in a fostering environment. Hoping to contribute to that.

Problem 1: The house we recently bought (1993 built) has a well pump, I would assume about 500 feet deep. At the tank there is a 1" PVC pipe threaded into a brass check valve before the relay. I cant find a definitive statement as to whether or not there should be a check valve here. It seems like most folks say the onl check valve should be on the pump itself. This was brought o my attention when sitting in the house alone with all the appliance off and I heard water being pumped up. All the outside faucets are off, no leaks anywhere but it keeps pumping. I figured I would start by replacing the check valve and started searching whether it should be installed horizontally or vertically and then read posts that it should be removed. Thoughts?

Problem 2: The house has four zones, one vertically installed tac0 007 pump running off a oil fired peerles furnace. The first floor is 1160sqft and has two zones. Zone A has about 19 feet and Zone B has about 42 feet of baseboard radiator. Its a very open floor plan, standard colonial style. My issue is that Zone B cannot bring the house up to temp. Last week it week it was a low of 8 and high of 34, thermorstat turned the heat on from 58 degrees at 4:30 am to 68. at 11am it was 63, by 7pm it hit 68. In the afternoon I manually closed the other zones to rule that out. I had the covers off the baseboards and vacuumed them, hot zone valve is working, the feed and return for that zone were too hot to keep my hand on for more than 2-3 seconds but I'm just not getting a lot of heat. Would a larger circ pump help? what should I check?
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Thanks in advance!
George
 

Reach4

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Problem 1: The house we recently bought (1993 built) has a well pump, I would assume about 500 feet deep. At the tank there is a 1" PVC pipe threaded into a brass check valve before the relay. I cant find a definitive statement as to whether or not there should be a check valve here. It seems like most folks say the onl check valve should be on the pump itself. This was brought o my attention when sitting in the house alone with all the appliance off and I heard water being pumped up. All the outside faucets are off, no leaks anywhere but it keeps pumping. I figured I would start by replacing the check valve and started searching whether it should be installed horizontally or vertically and then read posts that it should be removed. Thoughts?

How about a picture of the pressure switch, well pressure tank, pressure gauge, and the suspected check valve area. In particular, get the pressure tank info. There is a kind of pressure tank (no diaphragm or bladder) that would need a check valve in the system.

Why would you assume that the well is about 500 ft deep? That is very deep for most areas. Are you in the Great Plains? There are probably records available, and you might have a note on the well pressure tank nearby. Check with the county; they may have info for you.

Where is the well casing? Does it extend above ground in the yard, or what?
 

Craigpump

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About the check valve, some states want a check valve at the tank as well as at the pump, some states forbid a check valve on the tank. Check with your local building or health department.

How do you know the pump is running? If you hear water running, it could be the flapper in a toilet is hanging up, not seating and water is running out to the septic or sewer.
 

hellspcangel911

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pictures are below, the tank is a Well-Xtrol unit, has a membrane in it set to 30 psi through the valve up top. I just went down to take the picture after being out for a few hours, no water consumption but the water was pumping in. Gauge says theres 59 psi in the tank.
Thats the depth the previous owners told us, we are located in CT and on a little bit of a hill. Our last property (10 minutes away was a 730ft well, same setup). Not sure how the depth actually factors into this.
the casing is in the front yard, about 40 feet from the tank , sticks out above the ground 16 inches, green cap.

As for the heating, i checked the inlet and outlet after the zone was on for about 10 hours, should i turn the heat off for two hours now and then check it after turning it on? youll see in the photo there are two circ pumps, the PO had an outdoor wood burning furnace plumbed in for the winter months. its cut and capped.

thanks for the fast replies!
 

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hellspcangel911

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About the check valve, some states want a check valve at the tank as well as at the pump, some states forbid a check valve on the tank. Check with your local building or health department.

How do you know the pump is running? If you hear water running, it could be the flapper in a toilet is hanging up, not seating and water is running out to the septic or sewer.

Im not concerned with the requirements of my local health/building department, if the equipment fails im the one paying for it not the city..
I hear water coming into the tank, I turn the ball valve off preventing any water from leaving the tank and theres no change to the noise.
 

Craigpump

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Where in Ct? I see a Sippin Oil tag on your boiler.

Standard practice here is to install a check valve on the tank T. That's a spring loaded check valve so it can be installed either vertically or horizontally.

Those gauges are notoriously unreliable but if the needle swings it maybe ok.

The check valve is not preventing the tank from coming up to pressure, it's function is to hold pressure in the system.

If you hear water moving in the tank and the pressure switch is NOT opening to shut the pump off , you more than likely have a leak where air is getting in. It could be,
a leak at the pitless adapter
a leak in the drop pipe or fittings in the well
a leak between the well & house


If you were to call me, I would first check the static water level in the well, then pull the pitless up out of the well and pressure test the pump and downhole piping to be sure the pump makes proper pressure and everything is leak free. If that checked out fine, I would reset the pitless and then pressure test the line from the well to the house.

I personally answer the phone 18 hours a day.
 
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hellspcangel911

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Appreciate the thorough response. You raise an interesting point, during my troubleshooting I relied on the gauge, but I just switched off the pump ran out a bunch of water and theres no change on the gauge. when I switched on the pump it started up again.
Ill swap out the gauge, flush out the tank and troubleshoot some more. I guess I'll throw in a new check valve as well, worth a shot. If that fails you may be getting a call.. Im in Danbury.
 

hellspcangel911

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just a quick update, I replaced the gauge and found that the check valve by the tank was not working. It was indeed one with plastic internals. When I was at the store I picked up a replacement spring loaded 1" valve and found it had a lot of resistance. I tried the 1 1/4" valve which was very easy to open just blowing through it but served the same function. In the interest of the pumps' longevity I went with the 1 1/4" valve and purchased two galv. 1 1/4" bushings (the didnt have them in brass) to make it fit.
The fact that it was backgflowing leads me to believe either theres a hole in the line/pitless or the checkvalve at the pump is busted. Again, not sure what the logic is behind the required second valve at the tank, but this will hold me off till the Spring nears and I can further investigate.
As for the heat situation, I cleaned the furnace and it seems to have helped, it still struggles to reach temp (it was 7 outside today, and it took from 4:30am till noon to climb from 60 to 68.
Im planning on adding an outdoor wood furnace and just keeping the house at 70 degrees all day.
 

WorthFlorida

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....As for the heat situation, I cleaned the furnace and it seems to have helped, it still struggles to reach temp (it was 7 outside today, and it took from 4:30am till noon to climb from 60 to 68.
Im planning on adding an outdoor wood furnace and just keeping the house at 70 degrees all day.

Sounds like you may need a energy audit of the home. I googled "energy audit kansas" and a bunch of stuff came out. Read through them, some will say free audit but for the full audit will cost and obviously they want to sell you something. Check with your state energy department, they may offer where and how to get energy audits, may be free too.

If part of your home cannot reaching temp there could be up to one or more of the following, the furnace is undersized, the hot water temp for heating is too low, the radiators are too small (not enough radiant surface area), or your heat lost to too high. If you have a separate tank for hot water for the faucets then it would be safe to raise the temperature of the heating furnace. But so check what is the best temp for it to be set at. This is where the new smart furnaces can pay off. As the outside temp drops, the furnace temp raises and as it warms up outside the temp is lowered. Adding a wood stove and sounded like it was tapped in the circulation system provides the increase of BTU's needed. It appears that you energy lost is too great or you needed a larger furnace.

Lowering the thermostat to save energy cost then raising it again may actually cost more and take too long to get the space up to temp. When you lower the thermostat everything in the space cools down, floors, walls and furniture. So when the temp is raised it's heating more than the air. I live in Florida and it is the same with air conditioning. You raise the temp to save on A/C but then it can take an extra hour or more to get the temp down. The thermostat may reach temp and turn off the cooling or heating but it will cycle on & off many times before the temp stays level for longer period of times. For my homes with mainly A/C for cooling, I find a swing of 2 or 3 degrees to save cost and energy while not occupied for maybe a day seems to work, however, away for a few days or a week and lowering the temp for heating will save energy.
 
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