Need some advice... Came home to a flooded crawlspace

[Cloudee1]

Good evening fellas, I must say this has been a rough couple of weeks. I'll skip the rest of my woes for now and jump right into today's adventure.

I got home from work today and noticed a weird humming sound in the laundry room. At first I assumed it was the freezer that was in there, but when I got closer I found that it was coming from the water softener (not really, but it was being transferred from the pump through the water lines). Right behind the water softener is where the water comes through the whole house filter before disappearing back into the flooring. I have a pressure gauge installed there and I noticed that the needle was pinned at the 100 psi mark. It doesn't go any higher than that, so who knows what the pressure actually was. Well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that something is going on with my pump and that the humming sound I heard was it busily pumping away. Right away I flipped the circuit breaker to the pump and turned on a faucet to reduce the pressure.

So I head outside and open up the crawl space to take a look at what is going on. The crawlspace is completely flooded. By my estimates, there was close to 50000 cubic feet of water down there. So I jump in the car and head to town to get a new sump pump, cause no matter what else is going on down there, one thing I am sure of is that the sump pump that is at the bottom of my new pool certainly isn't doing what it should be. So I get home, get the new sump pump plugged in and start draining. It still hasn't come close to finishing yet, but it has moved quite a healthy amount of water.

I am guessing that this is what happened... at least with the pump. The sump pump went out who knows how long ago. The water level under the house finally rose high enough to submerge the pressure switch, because when I first looked, it was under water. Instead of tripping a breaker, the water kept the switch circuit closed and hence the pump kept running. Now that the water level has dropped to just 7 or 8 inches I braved turning the circuit breaker back on. There is still too much water down there to go crawling around in it, here in Indiana it's currently about 12 degrees. Anyway, I noticed when I flipped the circuit breaker that the pump started short cycling while water was running. Turning on for a second in which the pressure would jumped about 50 psi and then quickly shutting back off and likewise the pressure would drop that 50 psi back off. I also stuck my head down in the crawl space to see if I could see any spraying water or even ripples on the pool to try and determine if any connections had given out or a pipe had busted, but everything looked nice and calm down there.

So my question now, assuming that I will be able to get under the house tomorrow, besides the obvious of looking for leaks and busted pipes, would I simply need to add air to the tank to fix the short cycling or is there more that I should be expecting to do in this type of scenario. Is there some sort of pressure valve that would have blown out and need reset or replaced. In your guy's experience, given this lengthy scenario, what should I crawl under the house expecting to find?

*Edit
In case anyone is curious, here is what my pressure situation looks like on this side of the tank with the kitchen faucet turned on.

I know it's a bit fuzzy, but the low point is 20 and it is just shy of hitting 60 before dropping again

 

[Valveman]

Yes you need air in the pressure tank. But if the bladder in the tank is busted it may not take or keep air. Might need a new tank.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Cloudee1]

So I was able to get under the house this morning. There was still a few inches of standing water, but I managed to get the new sump pump moved into the pit. I went ahead and ran the cord out through one of the vents though and plugged it in outside. I was interested in trying to plug it in under the house with sopping wet hands while lying in a couple inches of water, that just seemed like a bad idea.

How likely is it that the bladder might have popped? With everything that has gone on in the past couple of weeks, there just isn't the money laying around to replace it right now. I didn't take the time to crawl over to the water tank to mess with the air pressure yet. By the time I crawled the sump pump up to the front of the house I was absolutely freezing. Hopefully, with the sump pump in the pit, some more of the remaining water will get moved out of there. Judging from the video I posted of the short cycle pressures, I am assuming that I have a 30/50 pressure switch. So that means that I should have 27 pounds of air pressure in the tank.

Now will I need to release the water pressure in the tank (with pump off open up a water line). Or can I check the air pressure regardless if the water lines are pressurized?

 

[Reach4]

Are you talking about 1 pump or two (well pump and sump pump)?

 

[Cloudee1]

The sump pump just got replaced. Now I am talking about the short cycle of my water pump and checking the air pressure in the water tank.

 

[Reach4]

To check the air in the pressure tank, you must release the water pressure. With the water pressure at zero, there should be no water in the tank. If you knock on the side of the tank, it should sound empty.

With a submersible pump, you want the precharge usually to be 2 PSI below the cut-on pressure of the pump. With a jet pump that differential should be 3 or 4.

That bit about the pressure gauge being pinned to 100 PSI... that sounds like a problem beyond the pressure tank. Maybe a bad pressure gauge, bad pressure switch, or something else.

 

[Cloudee1]

Well, like I said, it is my guess that the water completed the pressure gauge circuit, keeping it triggered even though it wasn't since water conducts electricity. It's a little concerning that it didn't flip a circuit breaker if my guess is correct though. As you can see in the video, with the water level sufficiently drained to the point that it is below the physical pressure switch, the pressure switch and pump are clearly working together engaging and disengaging.

I am trying to give the new sump pump a bit of time to hopefully get some more of that water out before I crawl back under there. Unfortunately there is a stupid liner on top of the gravel under the house so I doubt much more of the actual standing water is going to go anywhere anytime soon. It looks like I need to go to town and get a pressure gauge anyway, that would be far more accurate than a tire gauge lol. That and it would be really nice if I wasn't putting on wet overalls, so I have those tossed in the dryer right now. Really not wanting to crawl back into a wet crawl space so I am procrastinating a bit right now.

That's why I am trying to get as clear a picture as possible as to what it is I should be doing and checking while I am under there. It's a balmy 19 degrees here right now.