Three wells-one pressure switch

[warrens]

Hi

I have three poor producing wells, each around 400 feet, together they give me enough water but I have them on a combination of timers and 3 pressure switches, set at different cut ins and offs. This works but often I have to manually shut off one to give it time to recover, however I will be renting the house so want to make it as easy as possible now..

I was thinking of doing away with two pressure switches and running them all through one pressure switch so that they all turn on and off at the same time. Each one would still be on a pumptec or cycle sensor, so if it did run dry would stop forcing the pump.

Can you see any problems with doing this?

thanks in advance

Warren

 

[Reach4]

Hi

I have three poor producing wells, each around 400 feet, together they give me enough water but I have them on a combination of timers and 3 pressure switches, set at different cut ins and offs. This works but often I have to manually shut off one to give it time to recover, however I will be renting the house so want to make it as easy as possible now..

I was thinking of doing away with two pressure switches and running them all through one pressure switch so that they all turn on and off at the same time. Each one would still be on a pumptec or cycle sensor, so if it did run dry would stop forcing the pump.

Can you see any problems with doing this?

thanks in advance

Warren

I would be concerned that the three pumps starting at once would exceed the limits of the power circuit or the pressure switch. If the pressure switch controlled a relay/relays for pumps each on their own power circuit, that should work acceptably. But still, having 3 pumps running at once is inefficient with lots of starts. I am not sure how I would get these to take turns, which would be the ideal.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Valveman]

Once you add a Cycle Sensor to each well they will automatically turn off when the well is dry. Then you can set the restart delay to 20 minutes or whatever it takes for the well to recover a little bit. I would leave them on individual pressure switches and stagger the pressures a couple PSI differently. That way when well #1 is off on dry run the next pump will come on, and so on. By the time the third well is pumped dry, the first well should be finished timing out and would come on again as needed.

The only problem with this would be if well #3 never gets used. You might want to turn it on every once in a while to keep the water fresh. Just turning off one of the first 2 pumps would make the 3rd come on as needed.

But you could just put all three pressure switches at the same pressure. They may not be exact, but it would be very close to running them all on one pressure switch. You just might be running 2 or 3 pumps when 1 pump would do the job.

 

[Reach4]

Once you add a Cycle Sensor to each well they will automatically turn off when the well is dry. Then you can set the restart delay to 20 minutes or whatever it takes for the well to recover a little bit. I would leave them on individual pressure switches and stagger the pressures a couple PSI differently. That way when well #1 is off on dry run the next pump will come on, and so on. By the time the third well is pumped dry, the first well should be finished timing out and would come on again as needed.

The only problem with this would be if well #3 never gets used. You might want to turn it on every once in a while to keep the water fresh. Just turning off one of the first 2 pumps would make the 3rd come on as needed.

Elegant.

Would you set the precharge to 2 PSI lower than the lowest cut-on, or would you maybe set the precharge to about the same as the lowest -- causing a small stutter in pressure when the third pump was carrying the load? That stutter would be a subtle indicator.

 

[warrens]

Thanks for the replies. Valveman, your solution with the different pressures is more or less what I have now and it is the fact that I have to do some manual turning off to get one working that I wanted to avoid.

Your solution setting them all at the same pressure - wouldn't that be almost impossible to have them go at the same time-wouldn't one always be just that much quicker than the other?

Reach4-I guess if I put each one on a timer that would work but still makes it quite complex-so far I have 3 pressure switches, 1 timer, 1 pumptec, 1 cycle sensor (which is excellent by the way-thanks Valveman) and one well just has safety via the reset switch on the pressure switch. plus one well goes through a relay-it frightens anybody when they look at the setup which is why I am trying to reduce as much as possible. my ideal would be no timer, 3 cycle sensors and one pressure switch

thanks

 

[Valveman]

What horsepower are the pumps?

 

[warrens]

What horsepower are the pumps?

I think they are 1 or 1.5 hp

 

[Valveman]

A pressure switch is only good for 2 HP max. So you would need to run a single throw triple pole relay to operate all three pumps from one pressure switch.

 

[Valveman]

Reach reminded me that a triple throw relay would only be able to cut one of the two wires going to each pump. While this will work fine, if you want to cut both legs to each pump you would need a relay with 6 sets of contacts, and I am not sure they even make those.

 

[Boycedrilling]

I don't think they make what you really want premade, it can be done though. But nobody will design it for you for free.

If you had only two pumps, there are premade duplex or alternating controls. It changes pumps every time the pump runs. If pump 1 runs a cycle, the next time the pressure switch closes, pump 2 will run. This is very common for sewage pumps. It can be done with three Pumps, but it would have to be custom designed and built.