Handle Intermittent water supply problems with in-house pressure tank(s)?

[Boofuss]

I live in a neighborhood with shared wells. Volunteers maintain our wells and are dedicated and well-meaning. However, since we have lived here (about 4 years) we continually have issues with the water supply to the house either stopping altogether or dropping to a non-usable pressure (e.g. 15psi). We are tired of being caught in the shower when the water dies. Often the water will return within minutes, sometimes an hour or so. We have notified the people that service our well/pump but we do not think the problem will ever be fully resolved.

So...we would like to consider doing something ourselves inside the house that will mitigate the problem. I'm no plumber, but I wonder if I could add a pressure tank (or 2 or 3) at the incoming source, and pressurize it, so that no matter what happens with the incoming water we will be good for perhaps hours. We have space for the tanks.

Does this make any sense? Would it work? If we install some kind of check valve to prevent losing our stored water would the pressure be maintained inside the house? I would appreciate any ideas on this.

 

[Reach4]

If you add a pressure tank at your house, it should have a check valve.

Expect a 119 gallon pressure tank to hold about 25 to 30 gallons of water if full-up. Expect a shower to be about 2.5 gpm. However the pressure normally cycles, so you won't be able to realize this is an outage vs a normal variation.

One possibility, if the incoming water is 40-60 psi normally, is to feed the pressure tank via a 38 psi pressure reducing valve. Thus the air precharge could be set to maybe 16 psi, and you would have a while while the pressure to the shower drops from 38 down to 16 psi.

Maybe consider some kind of alarm to let the person in the shower that the main source has stopped, so rinse up.

 

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[Boofuss]

If you add a pressure tank at your house, it should have a check valve.

Expect a 119 gallon pressure tank to hold about 25 to 30 gallons of water if full-up. Expect a shower to be about 2.5 gpm. However the pressure normally cycles, so you won't be able to realize this is an outage vs a normal variation.

One possibility, if the incoming water is 40-60 psi normally, is to feed the pressure tank via a 38 psi pressure reducing valve. Thus the air precharge could be set to maybe 16 psi, and you would have a while while the pressure to the shower drops from 38 down to 16 psi.

Maybe consider some kind of alarm to let the person in the shower that the main source has stopped, so rinse up.

When working properly, the incoming is between 70 and 80 psi. I think our well people have the range set to 40/60 but I am at a lower elevation than the pump and so this accounts for the higher pressure. This incoming pressure is reduced to 65 psi via pressure relief valve. This is all in the basement and at 2 stories higher where our shower is, the end result is a reasonable pressure (actually we wish it were more, but it's acceptable).

When I look at the gauge I don't notice much cycling. I know it is doing that, but perhaps because of the elevation pressure any cycling is not noticeable.

Let me try to understand what you are saying. With my numbers and the 119 gallon tank you mentioned, I could set the tank to 65 psi and when we lose water at the main, we have about 10 minutes in the shower before we know anything happened (25 gals @2.5gpm). And that 10 minutes would still provide the normal pressure. Am I right?

Also, I'm interested in your comment about the alarm. Is this expensive? What type of device would provide this? (I'd love it if there were a reasonable cost method of sending us a phone notification)

 

[Reach4]

Pretty much right. You might notice that the flow is slowing, and you might not.

Hmmm. pressure alarm... I am not sure what would be a good sensor for that.

A regular 40/60 pressure gauge could probably monitor the incoming pressure before your check valve. Let's say if that incoming pressure would fall to 40, you could switch on a light or other thing. When the incoming pressure went above 60, the switch would switch off. I think that could work usefully.

 

[Boofuss]

Pretty much right. You might notice that the flow is slowing, and you might not.

Hmmm. pressure alarm... I am not sure what would be a good sensor for that.

A regular 40/60 pressure gauge could probably monitor the incoming pressure before your check valve. Let's say if that incoming pressure would fall to 40, you could switch on a light or other thing. When the incoming pressure went above 60, the switch would switch off. I think that could work usefully.

Thanks for the help!