Thanks so much in advance for your help. This has been a trial and error learning experience. Your answers to other people's questions really helped us in getting this far!
Troubleshootin and repairs we've already done:
Our pressure tank was losing pressure rapidly. Cycling every 7 minutes with no water usage.
1. We closed off the valve to the house. The cycling still occurred, so leak was on the well side.
2. We dug down to the pitless adaptor and put in a check valve by the well head. The cycling still occurred, so leak was in the well line, and not in the well.
3. We dug a couple holes, didn't find the leak, then finally called a leak detector guy, who pressurized the well line with helium, and he isolated the leak to an elbow in the PVC plastic. This cost $600, but was way better than continuing to dig up holes (This is the Rocky Mountains!! ) We dug that up, found the leak squirting out, and fixed it.

Current situation:
We then started the system, and there is still a small leak occurring. The pump now cycles every 4.5 hours (without usage), so there will be about 6 additional pump cycles / day, and about 40 gallons of water lost per day. The leak detector guy says this leak is so small that it will be very expensive to find it, and I should just keep an eye on it. We still have the holes open near the pitless adaptor, and at the repaired elbow, and a couple others, so I think it would be easier to find now when we can see exactly where the pipe is going. We've already had a light freeze, so I need to get this buried.

Should I just fill all the holes and monitor it, or should I have the leak detector guy come out and pay another $600 (or more? Not sure - how long it will take him, he says more expensive that the first).

Or any other suggestions? I've read about putting a check valve in near the pressure tank on other answers. This would prevent the pump from cycling, but wouldn't that also mask the leak problem, so I wouldn't know if it was getting worse?


Details of system:
We have a deep well, with a couple hundred feet of 1" PVC pipe buried about 6 feet deep. The pipe comes into the garage, goes into the pressure tank and then into the house. There are two manual shut off valves, one on each side of the pressure tank.

I would put another check valve on the well line just before the pressure switch.
That should confine your leak to only when the pump is running.

You paid $600 to the leak detector guy and he found one and left you with another? For that kind of money call him back to finish the job. ANY leak will only get worse, they don't heal themselves,) No leak is acceptable no matter what your well guy tells you. You hired him to locate leaks in your system and he left you with a leak, Call him back to finish the job at no cost to you. Good luck, Tom

Hello Tom and HkStroud - thank you SO MUCH for your help. I am leaning toward doing both of your solutions.

I would feel more comfortable getting the leak fixed, rather than to have to keep monitoring it. I agree that leaks only get worse. And I don't want to be digging this up during the winter. I called the leak guy and he said he would give me a discount so that I pay $50/hr. He said a small leak might take a long time for him to find, as it takes a long time for the gas to blow out the water through the leak hole under pressure. Also, he asked that I put a tap in near the well head so he can hook up his air and helium there. Last time he hooked up his hoses to the hose bib on the pressure tank, and pressurized the system from there with no problem and no request for a different connection. In fact, before seeing the site, he had told me not to dig any holes anywhere, before I told him we had already dug down to the pitless adaptor, and he said he didn't need that.

What is confusing me is that I asked him if I should drain the pipe from the well to the house, so that it would save him time (and save me $) when he gets there and he said no, he wants to push the water out. If the pipe is 200 feet long, 1 inch inner diameter -- that is about 8-9 gallons. At the current leak rate, under the 30-50 psi pressure from the pressure tank, that would take about 6 hours to leak out. I am not sure what pressure he has in his air / helium tanks, but I know he told me last time that the pressure was not higher than the tank so it would not damage the diaphragm. So not sure how long it will take to push the water out. When I asked him if I should drain the system to save him time, he replied that he was with a customer, and to just put the tap in, and he would take it from there.

The well is located up the mountain above the house, maybe 20 vertical feet above the pressure tank. Not sure if that affects the situation.

Can anyone help me to understand his new approach, and why shouldn't the system be drained to save time, rather than blowing it out? And if he needs to blow it out, why does he need a new tap put in near the well? Why not use the one on the pressure tank that he used before? I will need to call someone to put in the tap for me, at an additional expense. He said he was not allowed to change the customer's system.

If it takes him 8 hours to do this, it's another $400 at his discount rate. His advertisement does have a 100% guarantee of finding the leak. The first leak only took a couple hours to find. I'm not sure if I should expect that if there is a big leak and a smaller leak, that he should find both. I was a little disappointed in that when he found the first leak down near the house, he didn't at least walk back up to the well head to see if he could find any others while he had the system filled with helium.

After getting the leak fixed, I think I will have a check valve put in parallel with the manual shut off at the pressure tank (on the well side). Then I can open the manual shut-off valve and check to see if there is any leakage on the well side. And during use, the check valve will prevent any back pressure on the pipe and the well, and maybe help delay any tiny fractures from becoming leaks in the future.
Thanks so much again. Marilyn

What HK suggested will isolate the leak and stop your water loss. Cheap and effective. If the leak does indeed get significantly worse over time, you can still bring the guy in. Quite possible that it will not get worse. He said put it before the pressure switch. I think he meant to put if before the tank on the well side.

MIght add that SB has a good point. He was supposed to locate and fix the leak(s). He didn't get the job done.

I really liked your initial troubleshooting. Well done!

He said put it before the pressure switch. I think he meant to put if before the tank on the well side.

Yes, before the tank and before the pressure switch. I am assuming the switch is before the tank. That way you won't be loosing water back down the line from the tank and the pump won't be coming on because of a loss of pressure in the line between the well and the tank.
I am not familiar with how this process of leak detection works but he probably wants a hose bib on the line before the stop valve well side of the tank so he can use a higher pressure.

Hi all. Just wanted to thank everyone that chimed in with help and also give the final resolution.

I ended up not having the leak detector guy come back out. Prior to his first visit, he had a guarantee that he would find the leak for the $600. When I asked him then what if there was a second leak, he said he would come back out for a discount rate of $50/hour in the first 30 days after he found the first one. After I made the appointment for the follow-up, he requested the pipe fitting, and the day before he was supposed to come up I had someone come out to install that. When I called him to verify that, he upped the hourly rate to $150/hr, and was going to charge for travel (2 hr total), and take at least several hours to find the leak and charge for materials!! And he said that the leak was so small (40 gallon/day) that he might not find it! Totally different story, and I guess he really didn't want my business. So I cancelled that.

I dug out to the next elbow, in the hole where the leak was found, and found that elbow also had a leak in it. I suspect that it was stressed during the excavation and repair process, as the pipe gets bumped around a lot. So we lucked out, and after fixing that, the pressure in the pressure tank is rock solid. So thankful.

Congratulations. Always glad to hear that a problem has been resolved.

I do however have a question. While exposing and repairing these leaks, did you see signs of the purple primer being used during original installation?

Glad it worked out for you.