[sennister]

For us when we notice lower pressure it means it is time to change the whole house water filter. I didn't see one mentioned but that is where to start if you have one.

The pressure tank typically has a schrader valve (like a bike/car tire). You can check the pressure in there. The pressure should be 2psi below your cut in pressure. With a 30-50 pressure switch it should be 28PSI. When these fail, typically what happens is the bladder will rupture or leak. The most common symptom is that the pressure tank isn't working so the pump will cycle a lot. This can burn up the pump. A test is to check the pressure, should be 28. Also turn off the pump and vent some of the air and see if water comes out of the valve. If it does the tank is shot. I had a really strange issue where I didn't get water but my pressure was too high. I vented it down, a couple days later it was over pressure. This isn't a common failure but also a sign of a pinhole leak in the bladder. I don't think a pressure tank will really cause low pressure at the tap because it is just a buffer to provide some volume so the well pump runs less.

The check valve is normally down at the bottom of the well. This prevents the water from draining back down from the house to the well when the pump isn't running. A normal symptom of this is the well pump kicking on when there is no water being used. The only real fix for that is pulling the pump and replacing it but I wouldn't put an old pump back down there at that point. Some people will "fix" it by putting a check valve up top after the pressure switch as a budget bandaid but it isn't fixing it right. It would probably get you by for a couple years but the pump is likely going to be getting pretty old at that point.

Another issue I have seen is there is a 1/4" pipe going up into the pressure switch. I have had that get all corroded and clogged over time to where the pressure switch wasn't sensing the pressure right. That is an easy fix. Just need a 4"x1/4" nipple. I think that was causing low pressure in the house.

My setup has a pressure gauge next to the pressure switch. Do you have one? If so what are your readings. It is hard to diagnose with just it feels like less than normal pressure. Actually hitting your 30-50 numbers (or not) are more accurate in diagnosing.

 

[sennister]

Sennister covered it well.

A couple things I would add.

When you check the pressure in the holding tank the 28 psi example used should be when everything is drained and the well is off. If you do not have a water pressure gauge in the system you can hold your air gauge on the tank and it will read what the pumped pressure is at. In his example it should then kick on at 30. If your tank is to high it will drain down too much before kicking on and cause a pulse in the water.

I prefer to use the air pressure gauge instead of a water pressure gauge because then the same gauge is being used for both checks.

I wouldn’t worry to much about the clunk, some do this all the time and some once in a while. If the check valve is bad your well will cycle often.

Yes, I did forget that step. Turn off the pump and open a valve to drain off the pressure.

I really don't think it would be the pressure tank though. Typically that will cause a short cycle issue. The normally fail one of two ways. The tank rots out or more common is that internal bladder ruptures or has a leak. Feel free to check it since it is easy but if the pressure is low it likely isn't it.

Yep agree on not worrying about the clunk.

Another thing it could be is the pressure switch. You can use the insulated part of the handle of a screwdriver to push down on the contacts and run the pressure up a bit higher. I run a 40/60 switch on my system so we have a bit more pressure. I had my well pump replaced about 3 or 4 years ago now. We are at about 165' and had a well guy do it. I asked about running even higher pressures as we have a run pretty far away in the back yard with not a lot of pressure. He said we could go a bit higher but would start to run into problems with toilets not liking that much pressure. So we left it and upgraded the water line to the back yard from 1/2 to 3/4 which helped.

As far as our failure when our pump went out it was strange. I have two whole house filters. The first is a spindown sediment filter and then a regular filter. I was getting what looked like cotton in my spindown filter. Here is a pic.

I couldn't figure out what it was but the plumber that came out said it was the impeller coming apart.

Old Pump

New pump going down.

Here is my pressure switch with that 4" nipple and pressure gauge.

 

[sennister]

I don't have anything to add to the diagnosing, but if you end up replacing your pump, you should look into a variable speed constant pressure pump and controller, my well contractor set me up with one after talking me out of the cycle stop valve which he called a band aid. I don't know enough about it to say whether that's true, but what they setup for me has been very nice. No cycling once water useage starts, it just changes the pump speed to match demand and only shuts it down when demand stops.

When we had our pump replaced I asked about that conversion as well. As it turned out it came down to cost and amount of work. He had a pump with him but to do what you mentioned would have been a lot more equipment he didn't have and cost on top of time. If I was doing a complete new system for instance new construction I would go that route. In our case the well was running and not stopping so it was going to burn out. I initially thought the cotton material was plugging the pressure switch but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from because the pressure switch should always be before any filters so while it looked like a filter coming apart it didn't make sense. In our case it came down to I want the water back on so go with what we have. I want to say the well pump was 20+ years old and 20-30 years is pretty common on the life of them. I am trying to remember what it cost. This was a few years ago like I said but I think $1200 sounds right. Not bad being I called them and he was there in about 2 hrs. He did ask if he could get the truck to the well head. I said at the time there was about 2' of snow but I will take care of it. Put the loader on the tractor and had a path cleared for him by the time he got there. It is much faster if they can use the well trucks.

We really don't notice pressure drop offs as we are using it and we just have a basic well and pressure tank. Nothing too special. Heck I have a 1" hot water line going to our shower with a cloud shower head and a regular shower head. It sure isn't low flow.

It is always good to check your options. Our house was built in the early 60s and those variable pumps were not an option back then.

One thing I saw him do that I had never seen before was when he was splicing the pump to the wires going down to the well pump. Rather than use traditional butt splices he had some of that copper fridge water line that is what about 1/4" or so and he cut it into 1/2" segments. He then stripped off 1/2" or so of the wire on each side. I am standing there watching him and I asked "Butt Splices?". He laughed and said yeah. He slid each wire in along side each other one on each end of the 1/2" tubing then crimped along the tubing with a Klein Crimper like this.

https://www.amazon.com/Insulated-Non-Insulated-Klein-Tools-1005/dp/B0006M6Y5M

He said you can use a regular butt splice but it only gets a crimp in a spot or two. By using this tubing he can crimp the entire length of the stripped wire. I still don't know how it doesn't short out down there in the water. He said it holds a lot stronger and the last thing you want to do is have to pull the pump again because the butt splice failed.
He then just used electrical tape to tape it to the riser pipe. I asked if it needed to be insulated better and he said no.

 

[sennister]

Here is the thread on the issue which is where I was digging up the pics.

Well Issues

I took the wife and kids to the airport today and get home and I was going to start some of my projects. First on the list was to descale the tankless water heater. Head down to the basement and I can hear the hum of the well pump running. I think to myself that this is odd because I just got...

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