TVL
Member
Help me understand something please:
Last May I replaced my 18 year old 1 HP pump with a new 1 HP F&W pump. The old pump, which had severely worn impellers, had been masking some well issues I was having and the new pump quickly exposed the fact that our well was not producing as it once had. So, in June with the help of the experts on this board, I was able to determine my 35 year old well was having problems producing enough water (only had about 5 GPM). So, long story short, I had a new 4 inch sand well dug and when the new F&W pump was installed, it too could pump more than the new well could produce. So, I purchased a 10 GPM dole valve and have been irrigating ever since without any problems whatsoever.
This past week, I decided to remove the 10 GPM dole valve from the system and see what would happen. The well now has no problem whatsoever producing enough water for the F&W pump. As an experiment, I cut on two irrigation zones simultaneously and the pump tried its best to produce enough water for 2 zones at once. Naturally, the pump was not sized big enough to maintain that many sprinkler heads and while ALL heads were passing water, the pressure suffered dramatically. But, my test did prove the well would now produce enough water without a dole valve. As a matter of fact, the pump hangs about 27 feet below the static water level and the water level dropped ONLY 2 feet during all of the testing.
Now for my question:
Last year when I installed the 10 GPM dole valve, I recorded the pressure at the tank of each sprinkler zone as they ran. Naturally, each zone is different, but for the most part the zones runs at about 48 PSI. After I removed the Dole valve from the system, I ran all zones again to see what would happen. The well could now produce enough water without the dole valve restriction, but the pressure for each zone increased about 5 to 6 PSI. Why would the pressure increase? If anything, I would have thought the pressures would decrease without the dole valve because the pump is now able to pump all it can with only the sprinkler heads being its restricting factor????
Last May I replaced my 18 year old 1 HP pump with a new 1 HP F&W pump. The old pump, which had severely worn impellers, had been masking some well issues I was having and the new pump quickly exposed the fact that our well was not producing as it once had. So, in June with the help of the experts on this board, I was able to determine my 35 year old well was having problems producing enough water (only had about 5 GPM). So, long story short, I had a new 4 inch sand well dug and when the new F&W pump was installed, it too could pump more than the new well could produce. So, I purchased a 10 GPM dole valve and have been irrigating ever since without any problems whatsoever.
This past week, I decided to remove the 10 GPM dole valve from the system and see what would happen. The well now has no problem whatsoever producing enough water for the F&W pump. As an experiment, I cut on two irrigation zones simultaneously and the pump tried its best to produce enough water for 2 zones at once. Naturally, the pump was not sized big enough to maintain that many sprinkler heads and while ALL heads were passing water, the pressure suffered dramatically. But, my test did prove the well would now produce enough water without a dole valve. As a matter of fact, the pump hangs about 27 feet below the static water level and the water level dropped ONLY 2 feet during all of the testing.
Now for my question:
Last year when I installed the 10 GPM dole valve, I recorded the pressure at the tank of each sprinkler zone as they ran. Naturally, each zone is different, but for the most part the zones runs at about 48 PSI. After I removed the Dole valve from the system, I ran all zones again to see what would happen. The well could now produce enough water without the dole valve restriction, but the pressure for each zone increased about 5 to 6 PSI. Why would the pressure increase? If anything, I would have thought the pressures would decrease without the dole valve because the pump is now able to pump all it can with only the sprinkler heads being its restricting factor????
