air in the pipes

Hi all -

I am new to the wonderful world of well maintenance and need help - our home has a 80' well put in in 1970, and a pressure tank, filter cannister that uses calcite, and Kinetco water softener. We must manually backflow the system, which we have not been scrupulous about. The only repairs that have been made to our knowledge are replacement of the submersible pump about 5 years ago, and replacing the pressure tank gauge about a year ago.

The past few days, we have experienced a lot of air in the pipes, and banging, particularly in the toilet, but in all the faucets/outlets in the house. It is not the hammer-stop when you turn off the water, but rather it splutters and coughs the whole time the water is running. When we investigated the well system, we heard water trickling in the filter cannister, so we opened it up to find a lot of sludge and sediment among the calcite, and the tank full of more air than water. Thinking our total lack of backflow responsibility might have had something to do with this, we gave the system a hearty backflow and it returned to its normal functioning. For two days.

The air came back and we backflowed once again. Our local well supply store told us to clean the float in the water softener system, which we did, which didn't ultimately fix the problem. Help! Can this be a problem with the pressure tank or is there just too darn much sludge in our filter cannister? Is it something else entirely and does anyone know how we can figure out the problem? Thanks!

The problem is in the well not your filters. You obviously have a check valve in the system by the pressure tank. This will keep the pressure at bay in the tank, while a hole in the droppipe or any kind of leak in the well or pipe to the well lets water out and air in. Then when the pump kicks on, it sends it to the house. Your PH filter and softener will buffer some of this air, until it starts letting it into your plumbing.

Remove the check valve to see how fast this leak is. Then pull the pump to see where the problem is. It could also be the check valve in the pump leaking back.

bob...

Thanks!

Thanks for the advice - one question, though - if it is a leak in the pipe to the well or the well itself, is there any alternative to digging it up and replacing it? Of course, we have just put down a new lawn over the pipe and I am not eager to trash it.

We deep sixed a 5hp sub yesterday. Before the first joint reached the top of the casing the threads let go and the pump sailed to the bottom. We will hopefully get it out with a taper tap and a set of jars. But they are not always retrievable. And not all pump repair men have these fishing tools.

So let your conscious be your guide. Or like my Lawyer always says "Govern yourself accordingly"

bob...