BF03S Issues

[mtrev7]

Good day,

I am bit of a novice and I am having some trouble setting up my Gould BF03S Pump to use with my house. Sorry in advance for a lengthy post but please bare with me.

As a background, I am from the Caribbean and I have a Gould BF03S Shallow Well Jet pump to use at our house due to having issues with limited water supply to our area. The pump is modified in such a way that the air control valve had been removed and replaced with a pressure tank (unsure of what volume but it seems pretty small ?10-20 gallons). The pump was bought approximately 2 years ago, from a shop that does pump repairs, with the air control valve which gave the problem and it was suggested to have it replaced with a new pressure tank this year.

In summary, it is setup according to the attached diagram but to describe the flow - water will flow from the city into the storage tank (which was previously installed about 12 ft above ground) and the pump would be placed on the ground below the tank.

After my first setup (including priming), I realized over the period of about 2-3 weeks, the pump gradually begins to turn on more quickly after a tap is opened (instead of first draining a certain volume of water held in the pressure tank and then cutting on). The cut on pressure is at 30PSI and cut off is at 50PSI. As the pump begins to rapidly click on and off increasing with time, it still follows the cut on and off pressures but it just seems like the pump doesn't hold the same volume before cutting on as when it was first primed. If left as is, it'll continue this behavior until it reaches the point where the pump turns on almost immediately upon opening a tap. The pump will cycle almost each second if the tap is opened halfway. If emptied (it would drain a fair amount of water) and primed again, the pump will return to it's original state of emptying a large volume of water before cutting on at the 30PSI but once again, over time, the pump begins to cut on more frequently again. Note, when this issue occurs, the added pressure tank (when tapped) does not seem waterlogged. Also of note, the plumbing is fairly new, done around the time was bought.

Any suggestions will be appreciated into what might be the cause of this problem. Thank you in advance.

(the water on the ground is following drainage and prime)

 

[Valveman]

The BF has a small air over water type tank built onto the pump. Removing the air maker causes this tank to become waterlogged very quickly, which is what causes the cycling on/off. The added diaphragm tank looks to be the 2.2 gallon size. With the proper 28 PSI air charge this tank will only hold about 1/2 a gallon of water.

When you are using less water than the pump can produce, it quickly fills the 1/2 gallon in the little tank and the pump shuts off. When only another 1/2 gallon is used the pump turns on again. In the past this problem was helped by adding a larger pressure tank. An 80 gallon size pressure tank only holds 20 gallons of water, but would lengthen the cycles from seconds to minutes between on and off.

With a storage tank elevated above that pump will have a max pressure of about 55 PSI. You maybe able to tweak the setting of the pressure switch to slow the cycling. Try tightening the large adjustment screw in the pressure switch one full turn clockwise. This should cause the pump to shut off at 53 instead of 50 PSI. At 53 the pump produces much less water and may stay running while you are using water. But it is important the pump does shut off when the taps are closed. Setting the pump off so close to the max pressure the pump can build can be tricky.

I think those pumps have been discontinued. When replacing it just use a regular shallow well jet pump. You can get strong constant pressure and still be able to use a tiny pressure tank by using a Cycle Stop Valve as in our PK1A kits.

 

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[mtrev7]

Thank you for the quick reply. I figured that having the air valve removed would be troublesome but also the mechanism of it also seems troublesome by design. I guess why they discontinued this design.

I'll try adjusting the cut off pressure of the pump and see if it makes a difference.

I also came across this thread on this forum and wondered if doing something similar to this setup will negate the effect of the pump developing cutting on and off more rapidly over the period of 2-3 weeks.

Thread can be seen here. Ignoring the strange plumbing of the picture from the thread, it suggests that instead of attaching the pressure tank to where it is currently located in my pictures (where the air valve was previously), it instead can be attached on the output line of the pump (similar to other well pumps like in your diagram) and the empty air valve location be capped off entirely so the pump becomes sealed off in a way.

I'm thinking by doing this, it'll convert the pump to be as similar to those regular shallow well pumps?