Ask Me Help Desk - 35psi at jet pump pressure gauge, no water at fixtures

I have a jet pump that pumps water from a holding tank into my house. My kitchen faucet is the end of the line. This faucet has had lower-than-normal water pressure for a few weeks subsequent to the re-installation of my jet pump (I replaced the impeller). Somewhat suddenly, all faucets including outside faucets (beginning of the line) stopped working after some dirty water sputtering out. Earlier the same day, I had used my air compressor to expel water from my water-logged pressure tank. The pressure tank does not have a valve/faucet to drain it, so I believe that blowing the water out into the main line (and out an open faucet) is the only way to remove the excess water. Now, my system has 35 psi according to my pressure gauge (replaced 3 months ago), but not a drop of water will come out of any fixture. I am guessing that my system and/or pressure tank is filled with sediment which has clogged up everything. My lines are buried copper. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to deal with this issue? I am a new home owner and I am building competence as I go, so any help would be appreciated. Thank you, Chelsea

" lower-than-normal water pressure for a few weeks " this qwas more likely lower volume which appears to be poor pressure. The volume was low because debris has been clogging your lines and arerator on the sink faucet. See if there is an areator and remove it. What did you find, more debris? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cItlSuijtzc

Not sure I can envision your system set up correctly. You have a jet pump that pumps water from a holding tank to a pressure tank. From pressure tank the flow is to the house. The first outlet on the incoming line is the outside hose bib. Is that correct. Are there any stop valves on the line between the pressure tank and the house. What is the source of water for the holding tank? Would help if you drew a sketch of you system.

You said you blew out the pressure tank using compressed air. How did you do that? Did you used the schrader valve on the pressure tank. If so, did you relieve the air pressure and restore the proper pressure for pump operation? At what pressure is you pump switch set to come on and go off?

Ballengerb: There were debris in the areator; this did help improve volume somewhat, but that was before I lost water at all faucets.

hkstroud: I have a well from which I pump water into the holding tank(using a submersible pump). The jet pump then pumps water from the holding tank to the house. The hose bib is first in the line. There is an open/close valve on the main line just after the pressure tank, but the first outlet for the water is the hose bib (I do, however, have an emergency valve in the pump house that opens if the pressure gets very high). I did use the schrader valve on the pressure tank and I restored the pressure within the tank to 25psi after removing the excess water. My cut-in/cut-off pressure at the switch is set at about 19psi/34psi. Any higher and the pump cannot achieve cut-off pressure and just keeps running. Today I raised the cut off pressure and let the pump run for 10 min with the hose bib open, hoping to push out the supposed clog... Nothing happened. Any ideas?

[QUOTE=selma83;3704862]Ballengerb: There were debris in the areator; this did help improve volume somewhat, but that was before I lost water at all faucets.

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There is an open/close valve on the main line just after the pressure tank,

First place to look. Disassemble and clean out.

Assuming you have water in the holding tank. The bladder tank pressure (with the tank empty) should be set to 2 pounds less than the cut in pressure of the pump switch (17lbs). That way the pump comes on just before the tank runs out of water.

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There is an open/close valve on the main line just after the pressure tank

That is most likely the point of the blockage. Pipes on a pressurized line do not get blocked. Blockages always occur at valves. There are several types of valves. There is the quarter turn ball valve. They seldom get blocked because the port through the ball is the same size as the pipe. Easily identified by the fact that they open and close with 1/4 turn. There is the compression valve. The water comes in the lower chamber and goes out through the upper chamber. There is a port (hole) between the two chambers. When you screw the stem down, the stem with a washer on the end of it blocks the port and stops the flow of water. These are sometimes call globe valves or ball valves because the center of the valve is round like a ball. There is the gate valve. These have an elongated round shape. These use a gate, a thick round disk, inside to block the flow. When you open these, the turning of the stem raises the gate and allows the water to flow. Of course, turning the other way lowers the gate and stops the flow. Gate valves have a nasty habit of failing just when you least expect it. If the stem and gate separate, the stem does not lift the gate. You can tell when this happens because you can keep turning the handle, and turning and turning.and turning.

The compression (globe or ball) valve is most likely to get stopped up but the gate valve can fail as described.

If you have a compression valve, turn off pump. Remove the stem by unscrewing the bonnet nut (the nut around the stem) then unscrewing the stem from the valve. Be prepared to get wet is there is any water in the tank and there is pressure on the tank. The water pressure should blow out any debris. If you didn't get wet disassembling the valve, turn on pump and flush the valve. Reassemble the valve.
If you don't get any water out the open valve you will have to replace it. If you don't get water out the pipe after you have removed the valve, you have a blockage in the tank. Post back and we will try to deal with that.

If you have a gate valve, there is no repair. You will have to cut it out and replace

Mind sharing why you have such an usual set up. A submersible pump should have plenty of pressure and volume. How old is the pump and how deep is the well?
What kind of switch are you using to control the submersible pump?

hkstroud: Thank you; I relieved the excess pressure from the bladder tank so it is now 17psi. My valve must be a quarter turn type; it opens/closes with a quarter turn (90 degrees). My system itself is quite old. Much of it was built in the 70's when our property was a commune. They used a gas pump on the creek to pump to a 2500 gal redwood barrel. When the house was built in '80 the rest was tacked on. The gas pump was eventually replaced with the "well" (better described as a hole dug by a backhoe next the creek) and submersible pump. I replaced the submersible about a year ago and it seems to be working fine. The well is less than 20 feet deep. I use a manual switch to control the submersible pump. This setup is located about 5 acres from my house. There are many components and iterations of the system that I cannot claim to understand. I am just doing my best to work with what I have. Hope that answers your question.
So I did not mention this in my previous post, but other things have been going wrong and this may help shed some light on what is going on. My jet pump has been getting up to the cut-off pressure most of the time, but other times it just runs at about 20psi for a period of time. There were also air bubbles in the system. Because of these issues, I drained (and cleaned)my holding tank yesterday and replaced the foot valve. I found that it needed to be replaced, although replacing it did not seem to change anything. I still cannot get any water out of the faucets and it took a long time for my pump to get up to the cut off pressure.

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to consider my problem. Please let me know if you have suggestions.

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This setup is located about 5 acres from m

Five acres is an area of land, not a distance measurement.
What is the distance from well to house. I assume that the pump and tanks are at the well.
What size is the submersible pump. A submersible well pump in a 20 foot well directly to a pressure tank would work much better than pumping into holding tank and then using a jet pump to pump into the pressure tank. To many problems with control. Almost any submersible well pump be able to develop 50 to 60 pounds of pressure out of a 20 foot well.

What kind of pipe comes out of the pressure tank. Sounds like you will have to cut the line out of the bladder tank to see what is going on. You said earlier that the pump switch was set to 19-34 because any higher it would never shut off. Jet pups have limitations in respect to depth of the well . But jet pump out of a holding tank should be able to produce much more pressure than that.

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There were also air bubbles in the system

That is an indication that you are pumping air.

Thank you everyone. I was able to free the clog by opening and closing the valve a few times with the pump running. A lot of sediment came out. Thank you again for all the tips! I learned so much. Until next time... Chelsea