lifeauthor
Oct 23, 2009, 09:25 AM
I have a trickle of cold water on the second floor in both the washer, and bathroom. The foot valve as of last week was laying in the silt of the well. The pump and lines have pebbles in them. I have no access to the pipes in the tub. A shower is impossible because of scalding. The tub takes 1/2 hour to fill 1/3 way of and needs to be cooled to bath. The washer takes 2 hours to run the cycle. Thank you.
InfoJunkie4Life
Oct 23, 2009, 10:45 AM
It sounds like a clog. What filters are in place and do you get a quick burst of pressure or spat of water when you first turn the faucet on?
lifeauthor
Oct 23, 2009, 11:07 AM
There are no filters, although I bought a whole house filter I plan to put in over the weekend. When I turn on the water if the pressure is at 40 it is a bit better than when it drops to 20 but it is never enough to take a shower.
InfoJunkie4Life
Oct 23, 2009, 11:42 AM
You may be able to turn the pressure up. A lot of systems have a variable pressure gauge attached to the tank. If you increase it, it may help. This could be the result of one of many things. If the pump doesn't perform well, running pressure may drop. If you have a very small pressure tank, then any extended use of water (ie. Shower) you may lose pressure after a few minutes.
Pump: If the pump is old it may not be able to maintain a pressure high enough to run in high flow situations. Or if the well was drilled deeper, and the same pump was used, then its output pressure would be significantly lower.
Pressure tank: It was designed to build up pressure and then to shut the pump off. If it is small, then pressure will be depleted before long, and all of your pressure and flow will be relying on the pump. If it is set for a low pressure, then the same result.
If there is a leak somewhere after the tank, then pressure would be lost, however you would have a leaky pipe in the house. If there is a leak before the tank, then the pressure may be lost causing the pump to turn on more than necessary and costing you loss in high flow situations.
Clog: If there is a clog, the pressure builds up in the lines. When you run water the pressure would be depleted quickly and then slow flow would result.
If the cold water is the only problem and not the hot, then you may have quite a bit of debris in your tank causing a clog like affect.