Air in the water pipes

Hi,
New guy to the board but have quite a bit of plumbing experience however my current situation is baffling me! I have LOTS of air in my water lines, and also have low pressure when more than one thing is being used. This has not been the case before. I have an artesian well with a submurged pump and a pressure tank that has, and still does, maintain 50psi of pressure. From there it goes through a GE sediment filter and then a GE water softener. I have very rusty water, like tea, so I don't want to bypass the filter system for long to test things out but it does get better if I do. Any idea where the air is coming from? There does not appear to be a leak anywhere! I have changed the filter twice now (from the same pack) and there is really no change.

If you by-pass the softener, do you still have air in the water? You'll have to flush all the water out of all the plumbing first to see. If you do it's something with the softener, possibly the brine line sucking a lot of air during regeneration but air usually stays in the top of the tank and get get out unless the whole tank fills with air. But there can be enough absorbed into the water to cause bubbles etc..

Is the water soft?

You could have a leak in the well above the water level that allows air to be sucked in but then that would be more likely to cause low flow.

Do you have a bladder type pressure tank?

Gary
Quality Water Associates

Hi Gary,
Thanks for the reply, I bypassed the softner and sure enough no more air. I checked the lines in the softer and did not find a problem but I will look more indepth. Thanks, again.


Jay

Make sure the softener isn't simply catching air brought in from the well. Run water with the softener in by-pass for some time and make the pump run a few times catching the water in a bucket in the tub and watching for bubble in the stream of water, not in the bucket.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

Well I have run the water with the softner bypassed for a few days now and I think you may be on to something. There is no air in the system until the pump cycles, as soon as it does there is a little bit of air that is "injected" in the water but it only lasts about 30 seconds and then doesn't return until the pump cycles again.