Well kicking on and off....

[nastro]

Hello out there in the land of plumbing. I am not a plumber but I am becoming pretty educated and this appears to be the place to ask questions to those in the know.

My question is this, I have a deep well / jet pump. I have recently updated the preassure tank to a more modern bladder type. Over the summer I replaced the pump due to the old one acting up and it was so coroded it was unserviceable.
When I intalled the new pressure tank I replaced all the fittings and tried to do it "right". So I have the pump discharging via .75 poly pipe line to a ball valve, to a check valve, to the bladder tank, another ball vavle, discharging via .75 poly to the house. This a verbal flow patter in you will.
After doing all of this I noticed that the pump kept kicking in , a surge type kick in for about two -three cycles of the motor and off. After reading all the info I could come up with and performing many of the checks that have been suggested it appears that there is a problem with the foot valve. So I pull the pump and line and find half of a coroded foot valve and jet assembly. I replace these and reinsert into the well. I plumb everthing back up and sure enough it is still doing this. So I pull it back up making sure not to let the water in the lines drain out on the ground. I run the pump while it is top side and see that there are two small leaves at the fittings. I tighten everthing back up and do this again. It is much better but it still has two drips, about a drop every 5 seconds. It is getting dark out so I put it back in the well and it is still doing this surging. I have read about everything I can think of and I have theorized about this for the last two days. I went back out and investigated a little more. I have a preasure gauge mounted on top of the well pump jet body and a gauge at the preassure tank discharge "T". When the water is running in the house, the preasure at the tank drops about 5-7 PSI before the pump kicks on. THis drop in preassure at the tank equals about 2 PSI at the well pump gauge. So I turn the ball valve before the tank and watch the gauge at the pump and it is dropping about 2PSI about every 1-2 minutes, I figure this is about my drip factor I saw before putting the pump back. What I am having a hard time understanding is the effect of the check valve between the preassure tank and the well pump. If the check valve was not there would the preasure tank do some degree of compensation for my small leak at the foot valve, and when the pump did come on it would in effect be cycling as if the preassure tank had been emptied which would make the pump cycle normal and not surge as it is now.
I apologize for the length of this but I wanted to try and be detailed and provide my thought process.

Thank you,
Brian

[sammyhydro11]

Brian,
remove that check valve. There shouldn't be one there between the pump and the tank. The pressure switch needs to to read the tank pressure. with that check valve there the switch will drop at the slightest pressure causing the pump to tirn on and off. Plus the foot valve will keep the water from running back down the well.

SAM

[vaplumber]

I agree with Sammy. Get rid of that check valve, make sure you have a good foot valve in the well. There shouldnt be anything between the well, the pump and the tank. Dont worry about letting the line drain. Just keep extra water on hand to re prime the pump and the line to the well. If you have the smallest drip or leak even, you'll mess up your prime, suck air, and drive the system crazy.

[vaplumber]

Also get rid of that ball valve between the pump and tank. At least take the handle off it. Imagine the pressure created and the damage that can be done if some kid or careless person closes this valve. You only want a ball valve or any other close able valve AFTER the tank, and depending on popular opinion, of which I myself disagree, maybe before the pump for to allow servicing without dropping full prime.

[sammyhydro11]

If that ball valve is being used as a regulator for the jet its not the right valve to use. You should have a proper regulator valve in there ao you can lock the valve into a regulated pressure. Anybody can bump into that handle and throw the back pressure off on that jet assembly.

SAM

[nastro]

Thank you gentlemen very much. I will make the changes tomorrow and let you know how it turns out.

Brian