Well help!

[Ken Polo]

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for any help you can give. I've been scouring the forums but can't really find the answer to my questions.

I moved into a house last year that has a well only used for the outside. The house was all on well, but then was hooked onto municipal water, but kept the well hooked up to one outlet for the outside.

I have a 40.3 G pressure tank, 40/60 pressure switch, and 1/3HP submersible pump.

I moved in the wintertime, and the system was already shut down for the year (no need for water for winter in Canada). Come spring time, I just turned on the pump and away it went. I've never used a well before, so I didn't check the tank pressure, just turned it on and went. Right when I turned it on, the pressure went pretty quickly up to 60. When I ran the one outside faucet, it would quickly get down to 40, pump would kick on and repressurize. With the faucet full open, this cycle would happen pretty quickly (15 seconds). To be honest I didn't think much about it, since I was new and ignorant. To be honest I didn't use it all that much through the summer.

Come the fall time, I drained the water out of the pressure tank and flipped the breakers for the pump. I did a little more research over the winter so I would be a bit more familiar with the system.

I checked the tank pressure (it was 0... but since I didn't check it the year before I have no idea if it was 0 then or developed a leak). I filled it up to 38 psi (using a compressor, and it took quite a long time). Flipped the breaker and turned on the pump. It took quite a long time to get up to 60, but I thought maybe it was going to be like this with actual pressure in the tank.

Go to use the sprinkler for the first time after a couple weeks, and the pressure took quite a bit longer to get down to 40 (maybe a minute or so), but then when the pump kicked on, it can't get back up to 60. In fact it stays pretty much at 40, and starts to even decrease ever so slowly with the pump continuously running.

I drained the pressure tank, and the pressure is now around 15 psi (3-4 weeks after filling it to 38).

It seems like I have a slow leak in my diaphragm, but is my pump also pooched? Any suggestions on what I should do next? I'd rather work on this myself, rather than call in a well service. Especially since it's only used for the one outside faucet.

I would appreciate any ideas, and thanks for taking the time to read through this! I'll try to upload a couple pictures of my system. Green garden hose was used to drain the tank.

Thank, Ken

Ke

 

[Reach4]

It seems like I have a slow leak in my diaphragm, but is my pump also pooched? Any suggestions on what I should do next?

Your replacement pump will probably be 1/2 hp, because a 1/3 hp pump would cost a premium. A 10 or 11 gpm 1/2 hp pump is one of the cheapest submersible pumps.

If the pump can not hit 60 even with the yellow-handled valve closed, then your pump has probably degraded, or your piping from the well has a leak..... you have a check valve in your picture. If you fix things, you would normally remove or gut that. However it can also work around a hole in the pipe from the well. Normally you only want a check valve in/at your submersible pump

Your situation looks like a good one for a PK1A CSV kit... That would be an excellent fit for your yard watering.

That big tank looks like a Wellmate pressure tank. While those have replaceable bladders, the bladders are expensive and hard to find. They have shorter lives than tanks with a diaphragm. Wellmate has some good products, but not their pressure tanks.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Ken Polo]

Your replacement pump will probably be 1/2 hp, because a 1/3 hp pump would cost a premium. A 10 or 11 gpm 1/2 hp pump is one of the cheapest submersible pumps.

If the pump can not hit 60 even with the yellow-handled valve closed, then your pump has probably degraded, or your piping from the well has a leak..... you have a check valve in your picture. If you fix things, you would normally remove or gut that. However it can also work around a hole in the pipe from the well. Normally you only want a check valve in/at your submersible pump

Your situation looks like a good one for a PK1A CSV kit...

Thank for your quick reply! I should clarify, that yellow handle leads to the one faucet, and when I close it, the pressure does get back up to 60, although extremely slowly.

The check valve you're talking about, is that the brass thing just to the right of the pressure gauge?

 

[Reach4]

Thank for your quick reply! I should clarify, that yellow handle leads to the one faucet, and when I close it, the pressure does get back up to 60, although extremely slowly.

That may be the way it always worked, and you would need more pump to get to higher pressures from your water depth. You might want to select your new pump to work at 70 or 80 psi if you want to drive impact sprinklers. If you are using sprinklers happy with low pressure, you could turn your pressure switch down to maybe 30/50 psi. That is about 3.5 turns CCW on the nut on the big screw. You would adjust the air precharge to 28 in that case.

A 1/2 hp 7 gpm pump would generate more pressure than a 1/2 hp 10 or 11 gpm pump, but it would cost more.

 

[Valveman]

Right when I turned it on, the pressure went pretty quickly up to 60. When I ran the one outside faucet, it would quickly get down to 40, pump would kick on and repressurize. With the faucet full open, this cycle would happen pretty quickly (15 seconds).

You just described the typical pump cycle after the tank bladder has gone bad. With a good bladder in the tank the cycle is much slower, but it still cycles on/off repeatedly. The repeated cycling causes the tank bladder to expand and contract over and over until it breaks. Once the bladder breaks and the air charge gets out the pump goes to cycling within seconds instead of minutes. You will probably have replaced the pressure switch and/or the control box a few times by then. The rapid cycling from a bad tank bladder will then take the pump out very soon. This is all part of pump companies planned obsolescence. Stop the pump from cycling to begin with by using a Cycle Stop Valve, and you can use a much smaller pressure tank, have the pump system last several times longer than planned, and also get strong constant pressure in the process.