New well, Pump and Tank Wont Turn on

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LadyAlaskan

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:confused: Help the control box is in tank is set plumbed switch box Pressure gauge all there and wired but nothing happens when we throw the breaker
 

Bob NH

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ladyalaskan said:
:confused: Help the control box is in tank is set plumbed switch box Pressure gauge all there and wired but nothing happens when we throw the breaker

Link to Goulds service manual. Most of it will apply to any brand of pump.
http://www.goulds.com/pdf/GSSINGLE.pdf

First, get a digital multimeter (voltmeter. ohmmeter) at Sears, Radioshack, HD, or somewhere. They cost $10 to $50 in the lower 48, maybe more in Alaska. I didn't see one when I was in the shopping center in Chicken a few years ago, or in Talkeetna, so if you are near there, you might have to borrow a meter from someone. If you have to borrow a meter, I suggest that you ask the meter owner to come with it because it will be quicker than if you have to learn to use it.

I also like to have a clamp-on ammeter but they cost more and you may not have a lot of use for it. An electrician should have one.

It appears that you have a submersible pump (because you have a control box). The following discussion is based on a standard control box. If you have a Pump-Tec or something like that, then read the manual for it and get back to us.

Do you have a 120 or 240 volt system? Do you know that the pump is wired for the system voltage? Almost all submersibles have 240 Volt motors.

1. Take the cover off the control box and check to see if you have power at input terminals of the control box. If you have 240 Volts across those terminals, then go to STEP 5.

2. If no power at the Line side of the control box, then go to the pressure switch. The contacts of the pressure switch should be closed. If you have power at the switch LOAD terminals, then the problem is in the wiring from there to the control box.

3. If you have no power (no 240 Volts) at the LOAD terminals of the pressure switch, check the LINE terminals. There should also be 120 Volts from EACH of the line terminals to ground. If you have power at the line terminals but not at the load terminals, then the pressure switch is defective of the setting is messed up somehow. The switch should be closed if you have no pressure or if pressure is lower than the START setting.

4. If no power at the LINE terminals of the pressure switch, check the breaker. If it is a 240 Volt system, then the 2-pole breaker should read 240 Volts at the terminals.

5. With the power on, check the voltage between the black-yellow and red-yellow terminals on the OUTPUT of the control box. They are probably zero. If not zero, then the pump is probably running and you probably have a broken or disconnected pipe in the well.

NOTE: Some control boxes disconnect the power from the pump when the cover is off. Take that into consideration when doing the test described below.

6. If there is no voltage on the outlet, then look for an OVERLOAD RESET button on the case of the control. If you find such a button, push it hard. If it clicks and/or you hear noises in the control box, check the output terminal voltages again. If the overload trips again, then something is wrong in the system, such as wrong voltage pump or supply, or pump jammed, or something else.

7. Turn off the power at the breaker and turn it on again while someone is at the control box. See if that causes the output of the control box to have voltage, even momentarily.

8. If it still doesn't work, then with the power off, measure the resistance (black to yellow and red to yellow) from the table in the Goulds manual. They shoud be higher than the values in the table to account for the wire from control box to the pump.

If you haven't found the problem with all of this, tell us what you found and we can try some more things.
 

LadyAlaskan

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Rock On

Changed out the breaker to a 30 amp and all is WELL (pardon the pun )
THANKS SO MUCH THIS SITE IT GREAT !!!!!:D
 
R

Rancher

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ladyalaskan said:
Changed out the breaker to a 30 amp and all is WELL
There's more to the story here, ... did the old breaker pop? Or was it a loose connection, or was it a bad breaker?

Rancher
 

LadyAlaskan

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higher voltage Breaker

solved the problem. I had a split 20 amp in at first changed it out for a 30 amp
and the pump kicked on. I plan to fill the tank and boiler for the first time Thursday . GUESS I DID NOT MENTION I AM BUILDING MY OWN HOUSE HERE IN ALASKA FROM THE GROUND UP. Now that I will have the water on I can get on
with my rough in so I can start dry walling. I am sure I will be in with more Questions like
pvc and cvc or pex from here. I am running 1/2 in pex in the floor joist now. recently I was told that "you can use pex to run house hold water":cool:
 

Bob NH

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ladyalaskan said:
solved the problem. I had a split 20 amp in at first changed it out for a 30 amp
and the pump kicked on. I plan to fill the tank and boiler for the first time Thursday . GUESS I DID NOT MENTION I AM BUILDING MY OWN HOUSE HERE IN ALASKA FROM THE GROUND UP. Now that I will have the water on I can get on
with my rough in so I can start dry walling. I am sure I will be in with more Questions like
pvc and cvc or pex from here. I am running 1/2 in pex in the floor joist now. recently I was told that "you can use pex to run house hold water":cool:
You are a tough lady to be building your own house from scratch in Alaska in the middle of the winter. I hope you are in some "warm" place like Ketchikan or Juneau or Sitka, and not Tok or Fairbanks.

Please consider the following as a suggestion from someone who has a lot of respect for women who will deal with anything. My daughter spent a couple of months living with the Zulus in Africa, rode her motorcycle on the dirt roads in west Africa, and spent 18 months in the interior of Sierra Leone.

Making the pump work by plugging in a 30 Amp breaker to replace a "split 20 Amp" leaves a little bit uncertain. And your reference to the "higher voltage breaker" suggests that your understanding of electrical power may be hazardous to your health.

I think you should spend some of those long dark nights giving yourself an education on electricity before you burn your house down. You might start with the black/red/white/green wires, then 240 and 120 Volts, and follow up with the relationship between Amps and wire size. You have a little time before you need to deal with 3-way switches.
 

LadyAlaskan

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I hired experienced People

:rolleyes: to do the electrical and the gas lines and boiler. I have been dealing with the rest of the rough in. The well, septic and running pipe and in floor heat tubing. Part of being the owner builder or GC is knowing when to call in the subcontractors LOL
 
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