Water pressure problem

Hi all,
I have a deep water well with immersed pump, system is about 17 yrs old. When using water in the house, I can watch the pressure guage fall to the 40lbs where it would normally come back on. It sounds like the switch clicks on, but then the pressure goes straight to zero. If I shut off the water to the house(right after the tank) The pressure will build back up and shut off at 60 again. The tank is a bladder type, I am looking for the culprit, any ideas?

The symptoms were a little different in my own case, but I would suspect your 17-year-old pump might need replacing. Try running a garden hose wide open outside the house and watch your pressure guage to see what kind of pressure the pump can maintain. I could be wrong here, but I have been told it should be able to hold 40 psi even with the garden hose running open.

rebar said:

When using water in the house, I can watch the pressure guage fall to the 40lbs where it would normally come back on. It sounds like the switch clicks on, but then the pressure goes straight to zero.

Click to expand...

I once had a switch and guage acting a bit erratically because of a build-up of some kind of scale inside their piping. If you are actually getting plenty of water even though the guage and switch activity does not make sense, maybe that is the reason.

You have a serious leak on the house side of the pressure tank/switch.

Since the pump comes on and pressure builds to cut-off when the water is shut off to the house, there is nothing wrong on the pump side of the pressure tank/switch As long as the pressure holds at shut off.

Open the switch (remove the cover) being aware of 240 VAC and see if the click isn't the points closing when the pressure falls to 40 psi. The click is usually the points snapping shut.