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navajas · Jul 16, 2018, 06:58 PM

I've searched all over the internet and the answer to ALL of these questions is always, "Lift the little reset level". Tada! Your problems are solved. Until the next line which says, "Not all pressure switches have this lever."

And that's it. Nothing beyond that. I even found a question HERE about that but the issue resolved with a circuit breaker.

So, let's make internet history. I left the house, forgot the sprinkler was running and came home to a holding tank not drained, with a well pump that was still working, but zero pressure in the well tank, and a Square D without the magic lever.

Please tell me, and the rest of the world cursed with pressure switches that for some unknown reason do not include the "fix me in one easy step" lever, how to get water back into their house as fast as possible... because the in-laws or over and we just got back from a long day hike.

Help!!

navajas · Jul 16, 2018, 07:25 PM

Ha. Figured it out. If you're like me with one of the Square Ds without the little reset lever, you might have floats in your reservoir. I do. I have a minimum float and a maximum float. Since my water was so low from dumb-assing my sprinkler while I was gone, the minimum float was not high enough and therefore the pressure tank wouldn't fill (in order to avoid burning out the pump in my reservoir.It's REALLY close to where the float would trip the switch anyway, so I reached a kayak paddle down there and held up the float manually. This allowed the well tank to pressurize so we can at least use the sink and toilets. By tomorrow morning the reservoir will be full enough that people can shower and the level won't drop below the cut off.We'll just stink until then.Hope this helps anyone else without those wonderful little levers.

jlisenbe · Jul 17, 2018, 07:43 PM

I don't think the lever would have helped you anyway. That comes into play when the switch reads a pressure too low and "assumes" the pump is pumping dry, so it shuts off the pump. Pulling the lever resets that feature. In your case, your holding tank seems to have a separate feature (low level float switch) which turns off power to the switch. When you raised the low float, it turned on power to the switch, and hence to the pump. Is that correct?

Just curious. How are you getting water to the holding tank? Is there a second pump for that which the upper float controls?

navajas · Jul 17, 2018, 08:23 PM

As I understand the system we have a well pump, a reservoir (which is 1000 gallons) pump and the well tank. Our well is crap. We get way less than a gallon/minute (bu the water is very good).There is a low float which shuts the well tank down so as not to drain the reservoir to the point it kills its pump, and a high float to let the well pump know there's no more room.I think.

jlisenbe · Jul 18, 2018, 07:53 AM

So I assume there is a second pump which pumps from the holding tank to the pressure tank. If so, then that is the pump your switch is controlling. The high float does the cutin/cutout on the well pump. The low float basically protects the second pump from running dry. The holding tank is really a great idea since your pump, at a gallon a minute, can come close to filling the holding tank overnight and have it ready to use during the day. It's rather similar to how many municipal systems run.