Water Draining into well... air in system

[Charlie B]

Thanks for taking my question.

I have a cabin in southern Vermont that is pretty much seasonal, but I set it up for 4 season use after much effort. The cabin is on piers and the well is 30 feet from the cabin.

The well line is buried until it rises above the surface five feet under the cabin. Then it runs at a constant angle 30 feet to the other side of cabin. The pipe rises to thru the floor and connects to a blue expansion tank (I believe) and 10 gallon water heater. The exposed well pipe has commercial grade heat cable that extends from inside cabin to two feet below grade.

the issue:

When I purchased the cabin, I was told that the well had no check valve. This allowed water to drain back into the well from the lines in order to prevent standing water from freezing in the lines in winter. It made sense to me. Yet I’m not sure how this was done.
The drain back of water works great. I just turn pump off and open faucets and water drains. No problem there. The issue is when the pump is turned on or activated. I get lots of air in the pipes.

I really haven’t messed around with anything to explore the problem. I did several years ago, release a pressure valve on my blue air tank, but did nothing else.

I see no snifter or shearer valve on the lines. I really didn’t look too closely at the blue tank

What kind of set up do I have and what can I do about the large amounts of air, if anything?.

 

[Greenmonster123]

How deep to water are you? You might be able to put a check valve top side to keep it from draining back. If it is more than 25’ +/- it won’t work. Where in VT are you? My cabin is in NY 20 min from Bennington.

 

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[Charlie B]

How deep to water are you? You might be able to put a check valve top side to keep it from draining back. If it is more than 25’ +/- it won’t work. Where in VT are you? My cabin is in NY 20 min from Bennington.[/QUO

Thanks for the response. I am 20 minutes north of Brattleboro.
I want to maintain the drain back because it allows me to drain the system prior to departure in the winter.
The issue is the air and noise when the pump kicks in when the pressure hits less than 20.
I want to determine if there is something wrong or if there is an alternate way to get the same results of drainback without the air.
My well is probably 50 feet depth judging from the timing of how long it takes the first water to reach my tank. 12-15 seconds.

 

[Greenmonster123]

There are check valves with ports for draining

 

[Charlie B]

Also, is t
Can those check valves be incorporated into system right before tank and water heater? Opening that check valve will will allow the system to drain back? What about the air in system, will that be addressed?

 

[LLigetfa]

There must be a check valve already on your system otherwise all of the water would run back every time the pump turns off. There are two types of drain-back; one type drains back on every pump cycle automatically and the other type requires you manually open a valve.

If you have the manual drain-back system, just don't open the valve to let air in.

The automatic drain-back uses a check valve with a snifter valve that opens every time the pump shuts off to allow air in to drain back the line. The snifter can be removed and a manual valve put in its place.

 

[Valveman]

Just install an automatic continuous acting air release valve before the above ground check valve. There are better ways to make a drain back system, but the air release should solve your problem.