Water pressure dropped to a trickle in entire house

[googlealchemist]

We went from having decent water pressure thru the whole house, to a very abrupt drop systemically. The downstairs sinks as well as the upstairs sinks, toilet, and shower all have a trickle now.

When we turn something on, especially something major like the shower or flushing the toilet we can hear a loud groaning/buzzing kind of sound for a little while, assuming it's the water pump.

If we leave the shower going for a while the pressure will come back mostly every once in a while for a brief time and then drop off to a trickle again. It's like the pump is trying to keep up but it just can't.

Either the pump itself is burning out, which I would have 'assumed' would have been an all or nothing kind of thing...or something (sediment or something flushed by the kids) is blocking something somewhere....or sediment finally breaking loose and blocking it...or some other issue I have no idea about.

How do I diagnose this to try and fix? I've attached some pics of the setup downstairs. There is a fairly deep well outside that has a wire going into it so I'm again 'assuming' there is a submerged pump down there. We just turned the kitchen sink on to let it run and I could hear a faint hum when I opened the top of the well cover, whether it was coming from the pump down there or just radiating from the connected blue tank inside I don't know.

Is it possibly the blue tank and whatever air/pressure bladder is inside? We looked for a pressure valve to adjust but could not find one between the outside well to the blue tank or anywhere in betwee, I'm not sure if it's one of the rusted out gauges at the bottom of that tank or not.

We recently installed a new washer so I'm not sure if that could have somehow screwed something up either.

Thanks for any insight.

 

[Reach4]

You have a faucet at the base of the blue tank. Hook up a hose to that, and see what kind of flow you get from that. Maybe put the hose output outside. Also note what the pressure gauge is doing during that flow.

If that faucet has good flow, the problem is after that. The whole house filter is where I would check next.

Usually your outdoor spigot(s) are not fed via the the whole house filter. I presume the black poly pipe is from the well. I don't see a splitting off before the filter.

 

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[Smooky]

The water level in the well might be low.

 

[Craigpump]

Change the filter

Usually your outdoor spigot(s) are not fed via the the whole house filter. I presume the black poly pipe is from the well. I don't see a splitting off before the filter.

Yes they are, some people even neutralize & soften water to going to the spigots. Don't want water spots on the glass...

IF the gauge is to be believed, there is close to 60 psi on the tank. Replace the filter and see what happens.

 

[Smooky]

craigpump is correct. I have my neutralizer and filters installed in the PVC pipe before everything changes to copper pipe. All of my outdoor spigots are treated and filtered water too.

You could take the filter out of the housing and see if that is the problem.

 

[googlealchemist]

We thought about the water table as well, but it's rained plenty since the initial problem including a big downpour just today...

We just installed a new pressure switch but unfortunately nothing changed better or worse...

I checked the psi in the tank after draining it before and turning off the power, it read 12psi so according to the new 30-50 switch we got we added enough to make it 28psi in the tank before turning it back on...

A couple hours later the tank is still holding its 28psi so it 'seems' , unless I'm totally misunderstanding something, the tank/bladder is still good? And the switch is obviously good as it's brand new...do I need to adjust something in the pressure switch itself either way perhaps?

I'm going to take off the filter as someone else mentioned...it hadn't been cleaned/replaced in 10 or so years by the previous man of the house (gross not to mention lazy!!!) so I took that off, cleaned it up really good, and replaced the filter just a couple weeks ago before this happened. But I'll take it off again and see if something is clogged up...

Also going to check the hose idea someone else mentioned to see if the problem is before/after the filter...

A quick side note...when draining the water tank, at the very end it looked like a good bit of brown/orange sediment drained out of it with the last of the water...I had hoped that would help the issue but as mentioned it's no change...maybe it's still helpful diagnostically somehow?

Thanks for any other insight...

 

[Reach4]

What did the pressure gauge you have there do during this? Did it drop to zero while you were setting the precharge, as it should?

When you are getting bad pressure in the house, is the pressure gauge in the 30 to 50 PSI range?

Did you act on the filter recommendations?

 

[googlealchemist]

Just as a quick follow up it was indeed the water filter...totally mucked up with sediment..took it out and immediately fixed the pressure issue. Thanks