Pressure Switch Cycles

[Chad M.]

I kept hearing the click of the switch every minute or so. I watched it for awhile and found it would switch on at 41 and off (arcs sometimes) at 60 (30 seconds). It loses pressure (takes a minute) until it switches on again. This goes on and on and on. There is no water running from any faucets.

Pressure switch was installed new on 10/01/13. Tank is a Red Lion RL44 installed 01/19/03. Tank PSI is 37.

When the pump is on it sounds like just a trickle of water going into the tank. I drained the tank to check PSI and hardly anything came out. We have water and normal pressure.

Thanks for any input anyone may have.

 

[Reach4]

This could be explained by a leak. Shut the valve that passes water to the house, and see if the cycling stops. It probably won't stop cycling. If it does not, the leak is probably in the well. That could be the check valve is leaking at the pump, or it could be a hole in a pipe.

The leak could be underground between the well and the the house.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Chad M.]

This could be explained by a leak. Shut the valve that passes water to the house, and see if the cycling stops. It probably won't stop cycling. If it does not, the leak is probably in the well. That could be the check valve is leaking at the pump, or it could be a hole in a pipe.

The leak could be underground between the well and the the house.

It does not stop cycling when the water is turned off. I would imagine it would be best to keep it off as much as possible until fixed?
So, could a DIYer attempt this? Which one would be easiest to check first?

Thanks again.

 

[Reach4]

You can lift the well cap and see if you can see or hear any leaking. Also look for any softer ground or greener grass between where the water hits the house and the well casing. An underground leak in Wisconsin would normally be down maybe 4 ft, so the effects of an underground leak may not be visible at the surface.

The workaround, until you get the pump pulled for some reason, would be to add a spring-loaded check valve before the pressure tank. I have thought that having a bypass valve in parallel around the check valve would be useful after you get the other problem fixed or for troubleshooting before that.

Yes, keep the pump off except when you need water for now.

 

[Valveman]

Like Reach says probably a bad check valve on the pump. Wearing out check valves is just one of the many problems caused by too much cycling on/off.