Volker
New Member
I have a 17 year old 2 Hp. Franklin Electric, 245 ft. deep submersible well / pump. This morning, I woke up to no water and the galvanized tank pressure gauge read zero. I have irrigation zones going on during the night due to my location in the Palm Springs area. Lately, the pump will begin to respond by humming with the 30 Psi cut-in pressure. However, the pump will not deliver water even after humming for several minutes. However, when I manually open the Pressure Switch contacts and then allow them to close again, within about 30 seconds or less, the pump begins to deliver a good flow of water. Then, after one cycle of water delivery, the pump is just humming again until I manually "kick start" the pump again by opening the pressure switch contacts. After about 3 or 4 times of doing this, the pump will finally begin operating without assistance. The first "on its own" water delivery time takes about 3 minutes. Then, it seems to get going and each water delivery interval cycle is shorter and faster until it pumps water up every 24 to 30 seconds and stays at that rate until full pressure at 50 Psi. If I have some low level irrigation watering going on, then it will run all day. I though the Start Capacitor could be the problem so I changed it, but it did not help. I'm wondering if perhaps I connected the terminals backwards? Would the pump run at all if I that was the case? Do well control panel start caps operate on polarity? Would the cap. blow up if connected backwards for long period of time? I understand that after 17 years, I just may need a new pump.