No water

[QuailRancher]

My neighbor woke up to find she had no water to her house. This is in rural Hawaii, so she is on a catchment tank system. She recently (a few days ago) had a water delivery of 6000 gallons to her 10,000 gallon tank. The tank had about 3000 gallons in it when the delivery was made and there were no problems with water supply to the house until this morning.

The pump setup is very much like an above ground installation for a well. Motor/pump, pressure switch, bladder tank.

The switch looks good, including the contacts, and when I raised the lever on the switch, there was power to the switch and the motor ran for about a second, then shut off. The bladder tank is empty, or at least sounds empty when I tap on it.

It's been thirty years since I had a setup like this, and I have no idea what the problem is. Hoping someone will know.

 

[Valveman]

Check your voltage, but it sounds like it is tripping the overload in the motor,

 

[Sponsor]

 

[QuailRancher]

Check your voltage, but it sounds like it is tripping the overload in the motor,

Thanks. It occurred to me that the motor might be working against some excessive load, but I couldn't imagine what that might be. There should be no load with the bladder tank empty, but I'm not very familiar with possible bladder failures. I forgot to mention that the pressure gauge remains at zero when the pump comes on.

I'll try to find my electrical meter in my shipping container. I assume you're suspecting low voltage as a possible problem.

 

[Valveman]

Low voltage maybe. At least that is the first thing to check. More than likely a bad starting capacitor and/or the centrifugal switch in the end of the motor. Both are symptoms of too much cycling on and off, which is the most common cause of all pump failures.

 

[QuailRancher]

Low voltage maybe. At least that is the first thing to check. More than likely a bad starting capacitor and/or the centrifugal switch in the end of the motor. Both are symptoms of too much cycling on and off, which is the most common cause of all pump failures.

Thanks again. I have no way of knowing how often the pump has been coming on, and neither would my neighbor, as the pump is a distance from the house. At least I now know more than I did.