This is related to the “No water thread” in this forum. Background: well with pump in basement; water softening system that doesn’t seem to work (just bought the seventy year old house and the softener never seemed to work correctly), summer-winter furnace that is oil-fired. Recently the pump began running non-stop and the pressure relief on the furnace opened constantly resulting in a watery basement with a hot to the touch pump motor. My plumber installed a new switch on the pump. Result? Weak pressure and the relief valve still opens… Another plumber supposed a clogged foot valve for which he wanted $1600 to clear (on a thirty foot well or so). My neighbor (whose well is forty feet from mine and is thirty foot down) has good pressure and plenty of water.
Before this the water pressure was good and the shower rarely ran short. Now the pressure is a trickle and runs out after fifteen minutes if that. Any thoughts would be great. I’ve been in the building trades for most of my life and am willing to tackle most tasks before me, this plumbing situation seems like juggling six balls without thumbs…
Replies
My guess is that you have a jet well pump and you well is about the same depth as your neighbors.
The pump and two pipes that go down into the will. One is supplies water from the pump to the jet. They by syphon action it will suck water and feed it to the pump.
Now that jet will have a foot valve (check valve) on it. Also the jet could get clogged.
It is possible that with the pump runing constantly that might have pump the well down and pulled in mud.
Now I can't see $1600 just to pull that out.
But first we need to do some detective work.
Here is what you should have or something close to this.
A pump that feed a tank. Then at the tank a pressure switch and pressure guage. Then it should feed the house.
Now you said that you have a water softner. Do you also have a particulate filter or might the water softner be a filter?
You said "furnace" with a pressure relief valve so I assume that this is a boiler. Where is the connection to the boiler, before or after the filter/water softner? My first guess is that the filter is clogged.
What kind of tank do you have? Does it have a blader.
Here is a place to start. Turn off the boiler and close the inlet valve so that it is isolated from the water system.
Then make sure that there is nothing that is drawing water. Let the pump run until it stops. What does the pressure guage read.
Then start drawing water. Hopefully there is a faucett someplace near the pump/tank and before the filter/softner.
Run water until the pump starts. Did you have good pressure flow?
Let is run some. Does the pressure hold or increase? If you keep getting good flow then the pump and well are producing water. If the flow drops way off then the problem is in the pump/well.
If the flow is good then shut off the valve and report how long it takes for the pressure to build up and pump to stop.
What I observe:
Yes, two pipes from the pump out to the well (8' laterally and then down) with a pressure gage just off the pump into the house supply. It reads high (50+) but the pump only runs when a faucet is turned on, often after a long delay that results in the water pressure petering out. If the check valve is clogged, is that something someone good with a wrench and a strong back can pull up and service or replace?
There is a tank after the pump, new looking with an air nipple similar to a car tire. The labels says it should register 125#, need to check that. The pressure switch is attached to the pump, having two hex nuts to adjust pressure on/off points. One for increasing/decreasing on/off and one just for increasing/decreasing at which pressure the pump cuts off. I have monkeyed with them, attaining a workable balance but it is not satisfactory.
The softener is mostly a mystery to me, it consists of two bottle shaped tanks(like 02 bottles) and one brine barrel. Each tank is topped by a mechanism with time of day dials and such. They seem to run yet the brine tank doesn't fill (clog? still trying to find it if one).
There is another tank by the boiler, from which I drained a pint of cruddy water and that's it, up in the floor joists abovehead. The piping around the boiler is involved as the house is heated by radiant water so I think I need to make a map.
Whenever a faucet is used, there is about fifteen minutes of decent pressure which then diminishes to nothing. About five minutes later the pump cuts on, slowly building the flow back up. I will perform your recomended pressure test and report back. Thank you for your reply, especially your comment: "Now I can't see $1600 just to pull that out." as that was my opinion. It may be noted that that plumber was recomended to me by my mother-in-law (doah!)
"There is another tank by the boiler, from which I drained a pint of cruddy water and that's it, up in the floor joists abovehead"That sounds like an expansion tank for the boiler. I really don't have an experience with boiler systems."There is a tank after the pump, new looking with an air nipple similar to a car tire. The labels says it should register 125#, need to check that."No, that 125# is the maximum rating."Whenever a faucet is used, there is about fifteen minutes of decent pressure which then diminishes to nothing. About five minutes later the pump cuts on, slowly building the flow back up. "OK, that is completely different symptoms.The pressure tank and pressure switch are not adjusted to match.These too links have a alot of information about basic wells and pumps that you should read.http://www.watersystemscouncil.org/wellcarehotline/wellcarefaq.cfmhttp://www.keidel.com/mech/wellpumps.htmBut here is how to set the tank pressure."uestion: What pressure should the pressure tank be set at?
Answer: The pressure setting in your tank will vary depending upon application. The normal setting for tank pressure is 2-3 PSI below the pressure switch setting. You will need to know your switch setting. However, we suggest you contact a well contractor to make any repairs on your well.Question: What should the tank air pressure be set at and how do you do it?
Answer: To adjust a tank’s air pressure setting you need to drain all of the water pressure from the system and while the water pressure gauge reads 0 PSI, you will need to turn off the electricity to the pump. Check the air charge with any good quality tire pressure gauge. Adjust the pressure by adding or expelling air from the tank. However, we suggest you contact a well contractor to make any repairs on your well."The pump start presssure is probably 30 psi, but you can tell by watching the quague and as you slow draw off water.I think that you problem is a too little air in the tank.
First things first.Your boiler pressure valve blow-off is more or less unrelated to the water delivery to the rest of the house, me thinks. I'm betting the boiler expansion tank is simply water-logged. It needs to be completely drained of all water and then allowed to refill. If this tank has a drain valve on the bottom only, it won't want to drain well without you attaching a short-ish length of hose to that drain valve and blowing some air into the tank periodically. Either that or get ready for the tank to take half a day to slowly...glug, glug, glug its way to empty. But all that can be tended to later. Right now you need to fix the water delivery to the rest of the house....so close off the valve that fills/maintains water level to that boiler expansion tank and move on to the well stuff. When all else is working properly, you can go back and deal with the boiler issue.You need a basic understanding of how a well system works to begin analyzing what's wrong with your system and it currently sounds like you don't understand much, if any of this. For instance, it's great that your pump only runs when you open a faucet or the like. If it ran without provocation, it would mean you have a problem somewhere; a leak most likely. And if the pump would cycle on and off with frequent rapidity while the faucet is open....you have another/different problem. Most likely a completely water-logged pressure tank. This is really hard on a well pump. Troubleshooting the system and final resolution of a problem may end up with need to know just how much water your pump is producing per minute. It's a good place to start when multiple problems may be present. A really easy way to determine the production of the pump itself against no load would be to disconnect it from the pressure tank and catch the water in a bucket. This may or may not be easily doable. You're there, I ain't. <G>An alternative method for you would be to open the drain valve on the bottom of the pressure tank, attach a hose to that, let all the water out and then...........turn on pump and catch the results in a bucket of known capacity. Ideally, your catch bucket or container should be lower than the outlet of the pressure tank and your hose doesn't loop higher than the pressure tank drain valve. I'd like to see at least/about 6 gallons a minute. If you are getting significantly less than that…………..you gottem problem. Maybe worn out pump, maybe crack or hole in supply line back from well (inside the casing and could be under the water level to boot so would be difficult to see with the naked eye. This problem would evidence itself even more when hooked up and running against the pressure tank as the gpm delivery to the tank would diminish as more and more water would be forced out this hole or crack in the supply pipe down there in the casing. Hopefully, you don't have this problem to deal with. If the pump is producing decently at all, I'm going to assume your foot valve is okay…..cause it likely is. Another possibility for the cause of a poor producing pump would be a foreign object of some manner lodged inside the pump housing. Let's not go there if we don't have to.The pressure tank is the first thing in line after the pump. It is there to provide a given amount of water between cycles of the pump. Those cyclings are controlled by the pressure switch. When the pressure in the tank falls to the lower setting of the switch, the pump should start. When the pressure in the tank rises due to the incoming water, the switch will shut off the pump when the upper setting is reached.See this link for the basics of how various pressure tanks work.http://www.peekspump.com/tanks.htmYou must determine whether you have a bladder type tank or a single compartment galvanized tank. Look around on the bottom of your tank (most likely) where the supply line from the pump enters it. Is there a largish plate there that the supply pipe enters with a series of bolt heads around the perimeter of said plate? If so, you have a bladder tank. If not, you have a single compartment tank.I'm sorry to hear that you've dinked with the settings of the pressure switch already as this will add to the complications of getting things sorted out. I'm not sure what you mean by you've achieved a "workable balance". ???? At this point, my suggestion is that you again dink with those adjustments until they turn the pump off at 50 psi (all faucets turned off during refill) and back on at 30-35 psi. when the tank is drained down after filling……….by opening a nearby faucet. You'll need a helper or need to be within eye-shot of the gauge or………….hook a hose to the pressure tank drain valve (bottom of tank) and draw water that way so you can be within eyeshot of the gauge. See this link.http://www.waterwell.cc/pressure.htmHowever if you've dinked with both screws, your range is not likely a 20 or 15 range anymore. The tall screw adjusts the total range up and down together as described in the link, while the shorter one adjusts the top end alone (IIRC). So if you don't currently have a 15 - 20 psi range, I'd adjust that one until you do and then..........adjust the tall screw so it ends up in that desirable 30-50 psi working range.Once you have that……..I would suggest that you turn off the pump and completely drain the tank. Then close that drain valve again and put a tire gauge on that Shrader valve and adjust the air pressure until it is 2 or 3 psi lower than the kick-in pressure on your pump. Once you have that done, turn on the pump and let it fill the tank. But first………..IF you have a single compartment galvy tank, there should be an air volume control on mounted on it. See pressure tank link above. (There are rare exceptions to this rule and you don't likely have one of those instances.) If there is none, get one ahead of time and mount it once you have the tank drained completely and are about to adjust the air volume in it. If there is already one on your tank, it may be shot. This would explain why your tank is waterlogged (if it is). The things are cheap and now is the hour. See your local plumbing supply house for one of these. Don't forget to Teflon tape the threads and don't overtighten it to the point that you strip the plastic threads on it.If you have a bladder type tank, ignore the above need for a new air volume control.Now if the pump production checked out okay against no load (not pumping against pressure in the tank) and you've got the other things properly adjusted…..it's time to try out the water delivery into the house upstairs. If delivery is poor, time to look suspiciously at those filter units down there. Two tanks. Hmmmmmmm. Could be most any type of combination, but one is most likely a softener because you have a brine tank with salt in it. First one *might* be a sand filter and second a softener. Impossible to say from here.Anyway, if delivery to the upstairs is poor, you need to try bypassing those filters as they (or one of them) may be suffering from compacted media and thus choking off delivery. There should either be an integral bypass valve on each or some manner of made-up bypass consisting of three valves in a sort of cluster…….for each machine, most likely…..or should I say, hopefully. Without a bypass arrangement of some sort……..you're in for some plumbing work to get bypassed.I'll quit for now, hope some of this helpful and we'll all wait for a report of discoveries.PS - Around here.....handing someone a $1600 bill to pull short pipes like that and place a new foot valve would get the installer shot on the spot. <G> For $1600 anyone here can get the highest priced dude around to pull two 150' galvy pipes currently serving a jet pump, replace with one new pipe and that includes hanging a quality new submersible pump on the end of that pipe.Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Edited 5/13/2005 12:47 pm ET by GOLDHILLER
Whoooo-eeey! I got some reading to do! I want to thank all of you who have replied for your posts have begun to clear the fog considerably. This forum and its members are priceless. I'm glad myinstincts about a $1600 repair off the bat were valid. Although not a plumber, electrician or mechanic (being a carpenter) I am able to do simple tasks in these trades and I believe that when troubleshooting, you start with the obvious/least expensive options first.
I will report when I have completed my homework and the assignments you guys gave me. The whole situation had me down and frustrated but a few helpful guides can make all the difference. Even if the repair is beyond me at least I feel as though I can intelligently employ an honest professional and willingly pay him the true worth of the job (even if its $1595).
See you all soon on the boards!
You should really click on your name and fill in some profile info....like location anyway.If you're close enough, I'll come troubleshoot your system for $1599 or less. <G>You might even get me to both troubleshoot and fix it for less than $1599. LOLKnowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
need help???
Yes.And no one better armed with experience to give that than yourself.65/35 split?(you get the 65)Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
50/50 amd mbdyder buys lunch of our choice...
catch yur mail???
Edited 5/14/2005 12:47 am ET by IMERC
Partial update: I bypassed the water softener temporarily and the pressure soared back up, too high in fact. I'm back to monkeying with the pressure hexnuts to get it back where it should be. I'm guessing then that the softener system is buggered somewhere, the time devices seem to come on and it seems to try and process water (as the pump kicks on) but doesn't seem to do much. If I can't figure it I have to get a pro in before my boiler gets rotted out.
And I have to put my foot down at $1585, with lunch being bologna samiches and pabst blue ribbon.
A piece of advice........Sounds like it's time to toss that old softener, as it's likely impacted. I'd highly advise getting one with a metered head this time instead of ye olde day-clock deal. A few more bucks, but WELL worth it. (Don't go to Culligan for this or similar would be my advice on that issue)You'll need to take a sample of your raw water to the local plumbing supply house to find out how hard it is and how much iron and such is there. Hopefully, you can buy your softener and other equipment directly through them, BUT.........unless you're prepared to plumb it all in yourself......you probably don't want to do that. Most plumbers won't smile on installing equipment you've purchased and they wont' stand behind it either. What I really recommend is that you get a full spectrum water sample done by a qualified lab...before buying any equipment. You might have manganese or such in the supply that will require specialty media in a secondary device to remove it. Same holds true for iron and turbulent water and stuff like that. If you want to remove it, you'll need additional equipment.Wild guess is that you'll be looking for a 32,000 grain softener with metered head........as far as the softener goes. And additional equipment will most likely NEED to be plumbed in ahead of the softener. Anyway, that metered head will take all the guesswork and salt wastage out of the equation. You tell the head how many grains of hardness your water contains, what size the media bed is that it's attached to(in this example you'd tell it 32,000 grains) and it takes over from there. Counts off the gallons as you use 'em and regenerates when it needs to only.Now you said there was a second device in line on your system...also with a day-clock. If it isn't labeled as to what media it contains.......you'll need to do some investigation to figure that out.............unless you know whom to contact for that info. Wild guess here is that this second device is as old as the first and is likely shot also. Or at least the media it contains is. Maybe an automatic backwashing filter sand unit, might be something else. One way to start making discoveries on your own entails removing the head from the machine and reaching in with something like a piece of pvc pipe taped to your shop-vac hose. It's gonna have to be like ¾" pipe to reach in without disturbing the head and causing yourself problems…..while removing a sample of this material. But......if you do this…...make sure you have bypassed the machine first AND that while unclipping and pulling the head, you don't allow the tube that connects from that head down thru the contained media to rise even an 1/8th inch. Raise that head virtually straight up and carefully. If it does pull with the tube too much, you won't be able to seat he ehad again without dumping the machine over and emptying all the contents and reinstalling..........tube first. There should be some special gravel in there and it'll be mixed with the rest of the contents if you have to dump the machine. You can screen everything to retrieve it….and it's a pain. Anyway, the tube is placed first, then the gravel is put in and then the rest of the media on top. Finally, the head is again installed.
If I'm right, it's time for new media in there anyway. Bypass the machine, discover what's in there for media (take some along to supply house), order some new media thru plumbing house (and a small bag of that gravel) and then reload machine. These machines DO NOT get totally filled with the media as a rule. 3/4ths full or so. Hopefully the day-clock on tht one is okay and will work fine without buying a whole new machine. And these automatic backwashing type filters DO NOT come with a metered head. and one should not be used with them, either. That's why the manufacturers of such don't sell them with metered heads. They tried it and it doesn't work….or so I've been told. Would you consider a nice black and tan instead of that PBR?Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Yeah, softeners can get "tight" -- the resin sort of wears out and doesn't let water through as easily. You can reload the softener with fresh resin, but that's a difficult and messy job, and usually you're just as well off getting a new unit. (The old Sears units were famous for this -- would last about 10 years before fairly suddenly going tight.)If the softener's relatively new, however, it may simply need service. If it's not been cycling (turned off but not bypassed) it could simply be clogged with silt and in need of a backwash. If it's cycling normally there's a slight chance of some sort of malfunction in the control head is restricting flow through it.
I'll come up, and pretend to fix your foot valve for 1580 beans, drink all your PBR...then I'll head on over to my folks place in Lancaster for a paid holiday<G>You might want to check the nozzle and venturi on the softener, if your pressure tank's not waterlogged. Those things can get clogged up. Can't remember if you have a large particle filter before the softener. Are the controls electronic? Smack 'em with an old CPU...Screwy bypass valve?
Don't worry, we can fix that later!
My heads swimming with all of your info! Definitely calling in a pro. My plumber just rerouted some piping off the summer/winter furnace and gave it a thorough cleanout. He said that it looked good inside, just that it hadn't been serviced for ten years! And I thought that was incumbent on a seller, doah! The pressure has improved since his servicing and when I bypassed the softener. We actually like the hard water for taste and washing so my only concern is its effect on the machinery. Half or more of my piping is PVC and I'd switch the rest as necessary. I can glue a fitting much better than solder one! Should I worry about the clothes washer? The whole softener system seems buggered and looks expensive to replace so I'd dodge that one if I can.
I grew up near you, and water softeners were "de rigeur" (SP?) Lotta limestone...most folks don't put in a softener if they don't need it. You may need to do some resin bed maintenance, and at worst a new softener. You can get anybody who wants to sell you a softener to do a water test...with that, you can figure the rest out.What did the plumber say was the pressure problem? Don't worry, we can fix that later!
When I saw the title "weak water", I thought it was about an acid-water solution used at a paper mill I did some work in a few years ago.
Glad it is not. I still have a lump on the back of 1 heel from the weak water. Good luck w/ your plumbing.
Will check out the water test, good idea. I think the pressure problem is in an air tank, gotta drain the system again and check that. A new filter improved the pressure but since I started fiddling with the switch screws I probably have it all out of wack. Gonna take some tuning to get the balance back...
Sounds like you probably have several problems, one of them being a waterlogged pressure tank.
I vote for a waterlogged tank.
BTDT
Weak water..
I just put alot of Jack Daniels in it....
That's a good way to ruin the Jack Daniels -- we might have to confiscate your Tennessee Squire membership card and repo your 1 square inch deed in the hollow.
Jim