Well head is leaking pressure

[Reach4]

Shaving foam.

 

[Stackz]

ok, for whatever reason I guess everyone is hung up thinking the pressure leak as at the elbow and I guess I didnt explain it correctly lol. Its not. its at the well head rubber seal up against the black drop pipe itself. not the elbow.

I can physically move the pipe up and down in the well head its that loose. This was never an issue in the past when the well was running off the old leather piston 1909 myers well pump which was stolen by my last renters though. It is now an issue with the jet pump is all.

anyway, I pulled up on the pipe and cleaned it off and wrapped it a couple times with electrical tape and then pushed it back down and then tapped on the top of the elbow to push the pipe down further into the well head seal. then turned the pump back on and now it holds pressure much better.

instead of hissing at me and bleeding pressure down to where the pump ticks on real quick once every minute or two it bleeds down over the course of about 30 minutes.

I'm fine with this and since they are going to start showing the house today at 12:30 I'm going to leave it as-is. If I get a hair up my butt I'll go back over and take apart the well head and wrap the pipe in more electrical tape and then put it together and clamp it back together for a better seal but right now at least its not ticking on every other minute.

here's a pic of where it was hissing and you can see the water sitting in there. I'm pointing to where the hissing noise was coming from as well as the air bubbles. now its just sitting there all happy. its going to be 95*F today so hopefully that dries up and such.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Bannerman]

t bleeds down over the course of about 30 minutes.

The 'seal' between the well head and pipe is not the cause for the system to loose pressure and for the pump to run periodically while no water has been used.

In wrapping the pipe with electrical tape, I anticipate you covered a small hole in the pipe so it is now leaking slower than it had been, but is continuing to leak. It is likely the leak can be eliminated by cutting a few inches from the top of the drop pipe and then reconnecting to the elbow and clamp.

 

[Reach4]

ok, for whatever reason I guess everyone is hung up thinking the pressure leak as at the elbow and I guess I didnt explain it correctly lol. Its not. its at the well head rubber seal up against the black drop pipe itself. not the elbow.

...even with the 1/2" blue plug taken out, it still hissed

Let me explain the reason for our thinking. With the baby blue plug out, the casing air pressure is the same as the atmospheric pressure.

Ahhh... I see why you could air hissing where you point: you put the baby blue plug back in.

Do you get hissing with the plug out? With the pipe elevated, as in your most recent photo, you could better isolate the point of the hiss.

Since you can lift your black pipe by hand pretty easily, changing that foot valve, if needed, would probably not be so hard. Too bad the union is not closer to the wellhead if you decide to do that, however. You would loosen the 4 well seal nuts, and lift the well seal and all.


Also, when you connect the poly pipe to a barb for wells, it is normal to use two worm gear clamps with the worms on opposite sides. That presumes the barb is long enough.

anyway, I pulled up on the pipe and cleaned it off and wrapped it a couple times with electrical tape and then pushed it back down and then tapped on the top of the elbow to push the pipe down further into the well head seal. then turned the pump back on and now it holds pressure much better.

instead of hissing at me and bleeding pressure down to where the pump ticks on real quick once every minute or two it bleeds down over the course of about 30 minutes.

If this tape was not at the clamp, that would imply there was a hole in the pipe that the tape covered mostly. You would have been leaking water rather than air. That is why Bannerman suggested cutting your pipe shorter to cut out the leaky place. And your foot valve would be blameless.

 

[Stackz]

if the house doesnt go into a bidding war and the offer on the house stipulates "fix the sprinkler system and the rear two hose bibs" then I'll tie the rear two hose bibs into the well (they were originally, right now just running off the one I added when I added the jet pump) and then I will pull that god forsaken pipe up out of the ground lol.

aside from that, I'm pretty good with how it works right now. if it wasnt 100*F outside and the pump was in the shade, I'd mess with it more but there's already been 5 couples looking at the house today so I cant really even go back over there anymore.

 

[Bannerman]

if it wasnt 100*F

I woke up to stinking snow this morning. Currently 37F and predicted to not warmup until mid week.