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nauticalstar420 · Aug 22, 2012, 11:45 AM

This all started yesterday morning. When I woke up the water pressure in the house was fine, but as I showered my kids it slowly dwindled down to nothing but a drip! If someone needs to take a shower or wash a load of laundry, we have to keep ALL faucets off for a pretty long time, at LEAST an hour, to be able to get enough water to shower.

Once the faucets have been off for a while, the pressure is pretty good, almost normal, but within minutes the water either runs out or the pressure gets so low it basically trickles.

We did have our well pump replaced about 2ish weeks ago, along with a pipe that had several holes in it. Immediately after the pump and pipe replacement, the water worked fine, but now, 2 weeks later, we're having problems again.

Any help would be appreciated as I cannot afford to have someone out here after having to pay for the pump replacement. Thank you so much!

jlisenbe · Aug 22, 2012, 06:19 PM

Step one is to see if the pump is cutting on when pressure drops to nothing. Frequently you can simply feel the wellpipe. When the pump is on, there is a slight vibration in the pipe. But to be sure, pull the cover off the switch, a little grey box with wires coming out of it. There are two sets of points there. They should be closed. Hopefully, the pump is not cutting on for some reason. If that's the case, then I would think a call to the well guy would be in order as that is his responsibility. If the pump is running, on the other hand, then it might be that your well is pumping down and then takes quite a few minutes to recover enough water to pump again.

nauticalstar420 · Aug 22, 2012, 07:44 PM

Thank you so much for your reply!

As far as I can tell, the well is working as it should, although even with all of the problems I've been having, I still don't know much about wells and pumps. It kicks on at 40 psi and shuts of at 60 psi, which is what I'm assuming its supposed to do.

I did look inside of the grey box and it was a bit dirty inside. I shut off the power to the pump and cleaned it out the best I could and put the box top back on. I didn't look at the points to see if they were closed, and I'm a little embarrassed to say I don't really know what I'm looking for in reference to the points. All I saw was a couple of springs with bolts on them, and a bunch of wires.

I guess I forgot to mention that right when this all started, there had been some air coming out of the faucets at the same time the water was coming out. The air mishap seems to have cleared up, but now we have no to low pressure.

hkstroud · Aug 22, 2012, 08:17 PM

What kind of tank do you have and how big is it? Is it painted with valve like a tire valve on top, or is it an unpainted galvanized tank?

If you have a painted tank with the air valve, press the needle of the valve for about 3-5 seconds and see if you get air or water out.

Remove the pump switch cover. Have some one open a faucet while you watch the pressure gauge and switch.
How quickly does the pressure drop from 60 to 40 lbs. When the pressure drops to about 40 lbs. you should see movement in the springs of the points and hear them click. How long does it take for the prssure gauge to return back to 60? After the pressure gauge returns to 60 does it stay there as long as no one uses any water?

You said that some pipe was replaced when the pump was replaced. Was that the pipe going down the well or was it the pipe between the house and the well. What kind of pipe do you have?

nauticalstar420 · Aug 22, 2012, 08:42 PM

I'm not quite sure how big it is, but it is an unpainted tank.. no tire valve on top.

I'll have to check how quickly the pressure drops and how long until it returns to 60 in the morning since it's already dark here, but the pipe that was replaced was the pipe going down the well, but I'm not sure what kind of pipe it was as my husband was the one that spoke to the well guy when he was here.

jlisenbe · Aug 23, 2012, 03:30 AM

It kicks on at 40 psi and shuts of at 60 psi, which is what I'm assuming its supposed to do.

Nautical, I'm not sure what your problem is. If the pump is keeping pressure in the forty to sixty pound range, which you say it is, then pressure in the house should be fine.
But in your original post you stated,

When I woke up the water pressure in the house was fine, but as I showered my kids it slowly dwindled down to nothing but a drip! If someone needs to take a shower or wash a load of laundry, we have to keep ALL faucets off for a pretty long time, at LEAST an hour

So I'm not sure what to say. When your water flow drops to nothing, that is when you need to check the pressure gauge to see what it reads, and check the points to see if they are closed (touching). Those points are switches which turn the pump off/on. When they are touching, the pump should be on, and when they have a gap between them, the pump should be off. So I'm trying to establish whether the pump is running when pressure drops to near nothing. That is the big question you need to answer at this point.

nauticalstar420 · Aug 26, 2012, 11:26 AM

So sorry I haven't been able to get back to you all before now.

When my pressure drops to nothing, the gauge is still reading between 50-60 psi. Nowhere near the 40 it should be at to kick on.

I also forgot to mention something that is really important, at least I think it is. The outside water works perfectly fine. I walked around the entire house and all faucets are running perfectly just as inside the house used to. My fault, I should have mentioned that before.

I do have an extremely old Culligan Mark 59 water softener, I'm not sure if that could have anything to do with it, but I figured I'd put that out there. I tried bypassing it, checked the inside water, no improvement.

Its gradually getting worse. Instead of having minutes of water, its turned to 30-45 seconds. By the end of the day, we are lucky if we have any at all. I haven't given up and called a professional yet, mostly because it's the weekend and no one around here will answer the phone, but I am getting to that point and if I can't figure it out I may just suck it up and call someone in tomorrow morning. :(

parttime · Aug 26, 2012, 12:03 PM

Do you have a filter system? I'd check that. Good luck

speedball1 · Aug 26, 2012, 12:46 PM

So your hose bibs are on one branch and the house is on another, Can you track your pipes back and locate where the house branches off? That's the place to start checking. Do you have any gate valves in the house branch? Bypass the water softener and see if that helps, Let me know how you make out. Good luck, Tom