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dougbach552 · Nov 13, 2012, 07:36 PM

Hi Forum. I need your help with this problem that is driving me crazy in the last few days.

Everything seemed working perfectly. My kids took showers. My wife washed the dishes. My washer was running. I was in the basement looking at the Pumptrol switch and the pressure gauge. It showed between 35-40PSI. Suddenly, no water. The pressure gauge showed 0 PSI. I went upstairs to cut off the electricity to the pump at the power panel and went outside to cool down my head. Half an hour later, I came back, switch the electricity to the pump back on. The water came back.

That's how it has been going for the last 2 weeks. What could be the problem? Thanks a lot for your advice.

ballengerb1 · Nov 13, 2012, 07:52 PM

Easiset answer is your pump is over heating and kicking out. You should run it until it fails and immediately ckeck for power to the pump, also check to set if the pressure switch is calling for pumping

dougbach552 · Nov 13, 2012, 08:00 PM

Hi ballengerb1. Thanks for your answer. How do I know that the pressure switch is calling for pumping. I did not see anything happen. The pressure was stable between 35-40PSI. How can I tell if the pump is running? I guess it should not be running at that pressure.

ballengerb1 · Nov 13, 2012, 08:22 PM

Open the switch cover, usually one screw on top. You should show 120 vac coming to the switch, when the pressure drops you should then also get 120 coming off the two terminals which fed and go out to the pump. Is this a submerged pump?

dougbach552 · Nov 13, 2012, 08:43 PM

Originally Posted by ballengerb1

Open the switch cover, usually one screw on top. You should show 120 vac coming to the switch, when the pressure drops you should then also get 120 coming off the two terminals which fed and go out to the pump. Is this a submerged pump?

Yes, it's a submerged pump. I can't understand why cutting off the electricity to the pump would bring the water pressure back. Especially, why this suddenly happens. We have been living in this house for about a year until the last two weeks when this started.

jlisenbe · Nov 14, 2012, 04:29 AM

If it's a sub pump, then sounds like you are running dry in the well. After it has a chance to recover, you get water again. When a sub pump is running dry, it has a thermal protection switch that will kick it off until it cools off.

dougbach552 · Nov 14, 2012, 05:27 PM

Hi All. Thanks for all the answers. Today my problem came back again. We were not really using the water at all. I turned on a faucet and found low pressure. I went down to the basement to check the pressure gauge which showed only 20PSI. I opened the valve to let some water out. The pressure went down to 10PSI. I closed the valve the pressure went back to 20PSI. I tried that a few times. Finally I opened the valve until the pressure dropped to 0, then closed the valve. The pressure never recovered. The whole time, I didn't see or hear anything from the Pumpcontrol switch. Is it supposed to click or do something to open and close the circuit to the pump?

I finally cut off the electricity to the pump at the load panel and waited for 15mins. When I switch the electricity back on, the pressure came back to 40PSI. I heard some water running inside the pressure tank before the pressure stopped at 40PSI.

Please help if you see anything wrong. The pump guy came out but could not re-produce the problem!!

jlisenbe · Nov 14, 2012, 05:41 PM

Next time it happens, simply remove the grey cover from the switch. There are two pairs of contact points there. See if they are closed (touching). If they are not, then the switch is the problem. If they are, then use a volt meter on the line going to the pump to be sure the switch is allowing current to flow. Note that the points shown below are open. That should be the case once the pump gets up to the cut off pressure. The points open and the pump stops. Once it drops to the cut in pressure, the points close (with an audible "click") and the pump turns back on.

dougbach552 · Nov 14, 2012, 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by jlisenbe

Next time it happens, simply remove the grey cover from the switch. There are two pairs of contact points there. See if they are closed (touching). If they are not, then the switch is the problem. If they are, then use a volt meter on the line going to the pump to be sure the switch is allowing current to flow. Note that the points shown below are open. That should be the case once the pump gets up to the cutoff pressure. The points open and the pump stops. Once it drops to the cutin pressure, the points close (with an audible "click") and the pump turns back on.

Thank you jlisenbe. This is awesome. Just the information I have been looking for to understand how the switch works. Some other posts mentioned that you can manually force the switch to close. Do you know how to do that. Really appreciate the info.