Hello,

New member looking for some advice. I recently bought my first home, and today I opened my swimming pool for the first time. I was thinking about filling the pool with my well water, which would require my well pump to run 24/7 for at least a few days I would think (pretty big pool)... is this a bad idea?

Also, after running the hose for about an hour the water pressure in the house was terrible. I turned the hose off and the pressure gague on the tank in the house has been slowly climbing over the last hour or so. Once the well pump kicks on how long should it take for the pressure in the tank to get back up the roughly 40psi cut off? I'm trying to figure out if I may have some kind of problem with my pump... i.e. low flow rate or something.

Thanks

Craig

P.S. My well is over 600ft deep, will the depth of the pump have an effect on how quickly it will refill the pressure tank in the house?

Did your home inspector test the well for the amount of water it was pumping?

What is your pressure/bladder tank set at?

Most wells use a 40 on 60 off psi.

People that I know that have pools, have the water trucked in. Using well may deplete your water supply.

If the pump is the right size, the depth of well is not a problem. But it appears that the well u have is not pumping enough water for house, let alone fill a swimming pool.

Chuck

An hour or so is way too long. You should be able to fill the tank in a matter of minutes. However, that is altogether dependent on your pump. Is your pump above ground or in the well?

BTW, that kind of settles the question of filling a swimming pool from your well. I would go way out on a limb and guess it would take a LOONNNGGGG time.

Hi Chuck, thanks for the response

The home inspector didn't find any problems with the well/pump. He ran all the sinks and baths for over an hour to test the septic, and the pressure tank never dropped under 20 psi, so at that point he gave the well/pump a thumbs up. I don't think he actually figured out how many gallons per minute the pump was pushing.

From what I can tell (by listening) I think my pump is set to turn on around 20psi and turn off around 45psi.

How quickly should the well pump refill the pressure tank once it drops below the turn on if the water is still running? (my tank is pretty small ~20 gallon maybe) Should there be no noticeable drop in water pressure if the pump is working correctly? Could upping the turn on/off to 40 and 60 psi respectively fix the problem?

I think that part of the problem is that my hose line is basically the first branch after the pressure tank, so when the hose is on and nothing else is running in the house the hose has a lot of pressure, and can deplete that 20 gallons really quickly... leaving the pump with a lot of work to do all the sudden. Does that make sense?

Either way I think I'll probably truck some water in to fill the pool

Craig

The pump is below ground. So your saying that when I turn the water off that the pressure in the tank should shoot back up to the turn off pressure within a couple of minutes?

Hi Craig

Every pressure switch that I have come across in store has an on/off setting of 40/60. This is preset at factory. This can be changed as to your needs. Usually not lower then 50 or higher then 75 on the shut off side.

The bladder tank is set at 2 PSI lower then the on setting. If on is set at 40 PSI, then tank is set at 38 PSI. This has to be done with an empty tank.

The location of faucets should have no effect as all pipes are pressurized the same. Unless your well is going dry or does not have enough reserve, pressure should reach shut off in about 2 minutes. This also depends on how many GPM your well is giving u.

If your GPM is not high enough and a faucet is on, u will not reach shut off setting. Don't know how many GPM is needed to reach shut off with faucet on. Maybe one of the plumbing experts will pop in with an answer to that.

If u have a filter in system, pressure will drop off if filter is dirty. On my system I change filter every 6 months.

Chuck

If you want to adjust your switch settings, this site shows how it's done, but that is not going to fix your problem of a well pump which seems to have to run for an hour to bring a relatively small pressure tank up to pressure.

How to adjust water pump pressure, pump cut-on pressure and pump cut-off pressure - private pump and well system do-it-yourself repairs

Switches can be purchased as 20/40, 30/50, or 40/60. Yours must be the 20/40 variety.

Yes, your pump should be able to bring a small pressure tank
Up to cut off pressure in a matter of a few minutes. You really need to be able to get at least 3 or 4 gallons per minute, hopefully more. It sounds like you are not getting even one gallon a minute. You have a submersible pump that seems to have problems of some sort.

One more question. When the pump turns off and no water is being used, does pressure hold steady?

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the help, it seems to me like I must have a problem with my well pump, which sucks because it is only 11 years old

To answer your questions, yes there is a filter in the system, but that is after the pressure tank, so that wouldn't have an effect on how quickly the tank fills.

Also, yes, when the pump turns off and now water is being used the pressure holds steady, I can however see a slight "shiver" to the gague needle.

Craig

Craig, the way to judge your pump's capacity is this: Let the pump get to cut off point (45# for you). From an outdoor faucet, run water into a 5 gallon bucket. Measure how much you get before the pump cuts on. You will then time how long it takes for the pump to get up to to cut off pressure. Divide the gallons of drawdown by the time it took to get to the cut off point. That will give you gallons per minute. You would like to get at least 3 or 4 per minute. I would not think you are getting that much.

Do you know how far down your pump is?

I am not sure how far down the pump is, but I know the well is over 600 ft deep so I would assume it is pretty far down there.

I know when the pump kicks on by listening for the switch to turn on correct?

I'm starting to think the switch might be the problem. This morning I ran the hose until the pump kicked on (around 20 psi) then I turned the hose off and the pressure got back up to 40psi in around 5-10 minutes. However, I tried again after that to do the same thing, and this time I couldn't hear the pump kick on and it took a lot longer for the pressure to build back up. Will the pressure slowly build in the tank even if the pump doesn't turn on? The first time I could feel water running through the input pipe, and the second time I couldn't feel the flow. Does this also point to a pump problem or could it be a switch problem? Is there a minimum "off cycle" time for the pump... i.e. will it not kick on again if it has just run a full cycle?

Thanks

Thanks jl for clearing me out on different gauges. Will put that in my bonnet for future.

Chuck

Craig
If u have a Pro Tech type system, it will shut the pump off if there is no water to pump up. This is to protect pump from running dry and burning out.

Pump has to run to fill system. It would appear well is running dry and needs time to refill to pump up water.

Chuck

I think Crea is going in the right direction on this one.

You can check your switch by pulling the grey cover off and seeing if the points are closed. If they are, then your pump is likely on, especially since you note that pressure is sllooowwwwllllyyy building. There is a little pipe that leads to the switch that frequently gets clogged with crud and prevents the switch from responding properly, but I would not think that is your problem.

Might be time to call in a pro, especially with a 600' well. That's really deep. We don't hear of many deeper than that.

One request. Let us know how this thing resolves.

Will do, thanks for the advice guys.

Hi guys,

I am 90% sure I figured out what was going on with my well. I believe crea is right... I was running my well down below the pump, so the well had to recover before the pump could pressurize the system. Obviously they drilled my well to 600ft because they couldn't find water any shallower... that leads me to believe that my well feeds at somewhere near the state minimum of around 1 to 2 gallons per minute.

The other day I calculated (by dropping ice cubes) that my well level dropped about 75 feet after running the hose for 20 minutes, so running the hose for over an hour could have dropped the water level more then 250 feet, and at 1 gallon a minute the well would take hours to recover. The system re-pressurized within about 2-3 minutes yesterday after running the hose for 20 minutes, so when there is sufficient water in the well it is functioning correctly. I also found that my pump is pushing about 5 gallons per minute, so the pump is functioning correctly.

On a positive note, the well is deep enough that even with its slow fill rate we have plenty of water for daily functions (showers, toilets, dishwasher, etc.), I just need to be aware of the slow fill rate and not overwork the well. I've got bulk water scheduled to be delivered on Sat morning to finish off the pool. Thanks again for the advice you guys gave, the tests I have done seem to show that you guys hit the nail right on the head!

Craig

Sometimes people in your situation pump into a large (hundreds of gallons) non-pressurized storage tank. That way you can pump for ten or fifteen minutes many times a day and store water without exhausting the well. The only problem is you then have to install a second pump to pump from the storage tank into a pressure tank. It would not be cheap, but it would allow you to use water without having to worry much about time/gallons limits.

You can use "11/2" pipe for proper volume and pressure

http://www.best-pressure-washer-reviews.com/Honda-pressure-washer.html

I have the same problem after irrigating garden 40 minutes or so. However, no problem when doing laundry, etc. I have come to the conclusion that it is related to the fact that the hose is full volume, 3/4" line direct, whereas the house outputs are always reduced to 1/2 or 3/8 to jump pressure right at the supply, while volume drops. Hope that helps. (If I'm right) It does seem logical, though. Later.

I would not fool around with overworking your well. We have a pool that's about 14,000 gallons and had the water trucked in. Even every year when we open it we only need to top it off but still pay for it to be trucked in. The reason, our neighbor used his well and well, it dried up and killed his pump then he had to drill a new site which wasn't easy and cost him thousands instead a couple hundred for the truck. Most wells can only accommodate one home and with a family of four that is a lot of water, showers, laundry, dishwasher, lawn, carwash, etc... thats enough to overwork the pump itself. Call your well water company- they will advise.

Don't hear from a lot of people with the last name of Wooten. We actually have a little area in Kemper County, Mississippi named "Wootenville". That has nothing to do with wells, but just occurred to me.

At any rate, when you are irrigating, you use water steady and it depletes your well sooner. Using water in the house in generally intermittent or low volume, like in a shower. It's actually not uncommon for wells to have this problem. Not much to do for it other than be patient when irrigating.

Have a question about my well