Low Water Pressure

Last month my pressure switch was changed out as it was making noise everytime the pump ran. Two weeks later I had the plumbers back because the water pressure was consistently low and the pressure gauge was never getting higher than 35 (on a 30-50psi switch). Yes, you guessed it we had the pump pulled and the galvanized piping had a few holes in it, thereby letting the pump run 24/7 and never reaching pressure (what an electric bill ). Piping and pump are now changed out (Sta-Rite 3/4HP 7GPM Signature 2000 pump). The new pump is 280' down the well. The old pump was in the area of 330' down. OK - after everything settles out the pressure is great for about 5-6 days. Now it is fine for a short period and then drops. The pump is going on and off correctly (betw the 30-50psi settings) but I thought it is filling fairly fast (2-3 minutes). As the pressure drops below 40psi is when the pressure in the house begins to noticibly drop. Is this an adjustment issue or may there be a problem with the pressure tank which has not been adjusted during any of the above story? I also have a water softener and whole house filter hooked up into this setup.

Any ideas, assistance would be appreciated.

I suspect the filter cartridge is plugged up. Remove it and see if that helps. If not then by-pass the softener and see if that helps. If either does you're done. If not... you may have a leaking fitting in the well or a leak underground from the well to the house. Or the water level iin the well is falling too far for the new pump. But I don't understand the "filling too fast (2-3 minutes)" part. That pump should fill a pressure tank faster than that unless the tank is HUGE.

Why didn't they install a pump at the same depth as the old one? That leaves a lot of stagnant unusable water in a rock bore well and if a fully cased and screened well, how do they know where the screening is? The well could have much less water in ti than it used to and that will make the pump work much harder set where it is.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

Hard to answer that unless we know what the static water level is.....

Vollrock; more info is needed to give you a proper answer.

size of pressure tank, static water level.

I followed Gary's advice and removed the filter and water softener from the circuit and water pressure was great. I then opened the filter housing and found that the plumbers had installed one of those "foam" heavy sediment & chemical removal filters rather than the standard pleated paper ones that I have used for years. I called the plumber to find out why the change and was told it was just required initially because they had added a lot of chlorine into the well when their work was done and this filter would remove it. "It shouldn't be a problem". Well I removed it and placed in a standard filter and the system runs fine now.

I'm a little concerned about the comments on how deep the pump is versus the well depth. How do I find the static water level?

The static water level is where the water level is in relation to the ground surface at the well. You would measure the depth to the water and that is the static water level. Here it ranges from 20' to about 50' normally. That's until a month like we are having now with only .1" of rain for the month when the record is .29" set about 100 years ago... That can make the static water level fall substantially.

BTW, the plumbers should have measured it and told you. Hopefully they didn't use galvanized pipe again.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

Thanks for the info Gary. No, this time they used PVC instead of galvanized pipe. I'll double check the documents they left me to see if the static water level is listed there. Otherwise I'll give them a call.
Thanks again for your help!