joshm
New Member
Hi all, please forgive my ignorance on all things wells & pumps - I've been on city water all my life and this is new to me.
Quick background: last year we bought property with an old well connected to the house. It produces less than 1gpm and the pump is 25 years old. The previous owner drilled a second well just before selling to us which produces a more comfortable 9gpm, but never connected it to the house.
I have little information on the actual equipment, only a vague invoice provided to the previous owner. The new well was outfitted with a Berkeley submersible 2-wire 1.5hp pump (unknown model), Flotec CSV (unknown model), and 3.5gal in-well pressure tank (IWSS4/NT-30SS sealed, precharged to 38psi) along with a pressure switch inside the well casing, set to 40/60. It doesn't help that the guy who did the work & wrote the invoice won't return my calls.
The issue I'm up against is very short pump run time. I get about .6 gal drawdown from the small pressure tank, then the pump kicks on. The specs for the tank say I should get .75 gal, but maybe that's just an ideal. Once the pump starts, the CSV provides a constant 50psi. Once the water is off, the pump runs for about 5-7 seconds before we hit the 60psi cut-off. Everything I read says I need to aim for a 1-2 minute runtime, but the CSV literature tells me I can use a very small tank (even though mine is smaller than the recommended 4.5gal.) Even if I increase the cut-off pressure, there's no way I'll get a minute of run time.
If I use this setup to supply the house, I feel like I'll fry my pump pretty quick with the short runtime. Based on the above, is it working like it should? Or is there a problem with either the CSV or the pressure tank?
Quick background: last year we bought property with an old well connected to the house. It produces less than 1gpm and the pump is 25 years old. The previous owner drilled a second well just before selling to us which produces a more comfortable 9gpm, but never connected it to the house.
I have little information on the actual equipment, only a vague invoice provided to the previous owner. The new well was outfitted with a Berkeley submersible 2-wire 1.5hp pump (unknown model), Flotec CSV (unknown model), and 3.5gal in-well pressure tank (IWSS4/NT-30SS sealed, precharged to 38psi) along with a pressure switch inside the well casing, set to 40/60. It doesn't help that the guy who did the work & wrote the invoice won't return my calls.
The issue I'm up against is very short pump run time. I get about .6 gal drawdown from the small pressure tank, then the pump kicks on. The specs for the tank say I should get .75 gal, but maybe that's just an ideal. Once the pump starts, the CSV provides a constant 50psi. Once the water is off, the pump runs for about 5-7 seconds before we hit the 60psi cut-off. Everything I read says I need to aim for a 1-2 minute runtime, but the CSV literature tells me I can use a very small tank (even though mine is smaller than the recommended 4.5gal.) Even if I increase the cut-off pressure, there's no way I'll get a minute of run time.
If I use this setup to supply the house, I feel like I'll fry my pump pretty quick with the short runtime. Based on the above, is it working like it should? Or is there a problem with either the CSV or the pressure tank?