Just a little advice please...

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Prost

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Hey all,

First I love this site, it really helps for us homeowners who have small simple problems that shouldn't require hundreds of dollars for someone to fix in 5 minutes.
I recently had an issue with my pump cycling a lot. This is to say that the pump would cycle on for about 35 seconds and then stay off for about 25 seconds when running an outside hose with a little oscillating sprinkler. Knowing that there was something wrong I came to this site and then found a few forums to help. I first looked at the captive air pressure in the tank. My tank is a well-x-trol 32 gallon tank with a 40/60 switch on it, and this is all driven by a 1hp 4" submersible Grundfos pump. After draining the tank I found that it only had 20PSI topside in it. I increased the pressure to 38.5PSI and refilled the tank as this forum instructed. The draw down for this tank now is close to the manufacturer's specs at about 9.0 gallons before the pressure drops to 40PSI and initiates the pump.
With the hose running now I can get about a 2.5 minute draw down time and then the pump will fire up and reach turn off pressure in about 1 minute. I have noticed that now the pressure guage is close to 70PSI when the pump finally turns off. Should I adjust this to 60PSI like it was once at? And the next question is what nut on the pressure switch do I use to adjust it, if I need to?
The only reason I ask all this is because I opened up a sprinkler station to water and it seems that when the pressure drops to 40PSI on the switch the pump seems to stay on and builds pressure really slow, Meaning that from the indicated 70PSI on the switch it takes about 1 minute for the draw down to turn the pump on, but the from 40PSI to 70PSI it takes now about 3.5 minutes for the pump to turn off, only when I run my sprinklers in one station. Is this a bad ratio for cool down of the pump?

Thanks for any suggestions, if you need more info on the sprinklers let me know I will have to dig that up.
 

hj

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pump

when the pump turns on it is refilling the tank, but also supplying water to the sprinkler system. So, the more water the sprinklers require, the slower the tank will refill before the pump can turn off.
 

Gary Slusser

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Once the/A pump is started, it costs less to leave it run than it does to shut it off and start it again. The more frequent starts, the shorter the life of the pump motor and the higher the electirc bill.

A 1 hp pump motor should be off at least 60 seconds (120 is better) between starts to provide proper cooling of the motor. That's a function of the tank. Yours is borderline when the sprinklers are running and I'm sure it's undersized for the house water usage.

I'd adjust the pressure settings to 40/60 as long as the sprinkler works. BTW, "code ' says your well system should have a pressure relief valve that is usually set at 75 psi. In the pressure switch, the tall screw nut adjusts the range (40/60) up by tightening down by losening, and the short screw nut only adjusts the cut-out (off) setting. A Furnas switch has a bolt head instead of the short screw of the Square D (type) switches.

Gary
Quality Water Associates
 
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