Storage tank setup

Over the last 12 years my well output has dropped from 5gpm to 2gpm. Not enough for my water softener to cycle properly. I've had the original driller check the well and there wasn't much they could do. They tried blowing it but there wasn't enough static head to accomplish anything. There are 6 other wells in my area and they are all low producers.
I'm considering restricting the output to less than 2gpm going into the storage tank. Then I'll use a jet pump from the storage tank into my pressure tank. My well is 4", 47ft deep. Can I restrict the submersible at the storage tank or should it be done at the pump. Also will I get into a cooling issue by having such a low flow over a long period of time. The other option is letting the submersible run at capacity but on a timed duty cycle keeping the casing full, similiar to a Pump-Tec but stopping for a rest before the casing empties.

1 GPM is safe. You can restrict a pump to less than one GPM and it will have sufficient cooling but, stay at or above 1 GPM if you can. A 4" cooling shroud on the pump will keep the motor even cooler, and let you draw water from a little deeper in the well. As shallow as your well is, I would restrict the pump instead of letting it cycle according to water level with a pump-tec. The pump-tec does not shut off the pump UNTIL the pump is full of air. Doing this over and over is not as good as restricting the pump. The pumptec should still be used but, just for safty.

I wasn't clear regarding the cooling, the pump I'm concerned about is the submersible so unless I'm missing something about a cooling shround, I mislead you. Also should the restriction but at the fill inlet to the storage tank or at the submersible pump discharge inside the well casing?

If you do restrict the pump. Do it before the tank. It does not have to be in the well. Any where between the well and tank.

If you do restrict the pump to 1gpm. Keep a check on the water temp. One gpm is not much water.
A submersible can build up enough heat to melt the casing. (Assuming you have pvc casing)The internal heater does not always shut the pump down.
It can melt the casing to the pump, and if the pump will not restart, you will need a new well.

Not trying to alarm you, just saying what can happen.



Travis

1 GPM is plenty to keep 2 HP and smaller submersibles cool. Franklin says that 2/10 of a gallon, even without a shroud, is all you need to cool their 2 HP and smaller motors. 1 GPM is 5 times that amount, and especially with a shroud will certainly cool a submersible motor. 1 GPM is not much water but, it is plenty to wash away the heat and keep anything from melting. The main reason is that the motor is derated. A 1HP pump restricted to 1 GPM will be drawing a little more than ½ HP load. A 1 HP motor only drawing ½ HP load is not putting out much heat and needs very little flow to remain cool. You will however, quickly melt the pump, casing, and ruin the well if you let the pump run dry. That is why you need something like the Pump-tec to protect from this happening. The problem with the Pump-Tec is sensitivity. When you restrict the pump to 1 GPM, the lower amps makes the Pump-Tec think the well is dry, and it shuts off the pump. The newer Pump-Tecs have a sensitivity adjustment that the older ones did not have. However, sometimes the sensitivity adjustment is not enough for a restricted pump.

The Cycle Sensor is a better choice when used with a restricted pump. With the Cycle Sensor you can actually see the amps on the display. You can see that a 9 amp 1 HP pump is only drawing 5 amps when the pump is restricted to 1 GPM. Then you can adjust the undercurrent to 4.5 amps. This will keep the Cycle Sensor from shutting off the pump for simply being restricted to 1 GPM and 5 amps but, will still see a dry well scenario and safely shut the pump down when the amps drop below 4.5.

The Cycle Sensor was designed to work with Cycle Stop Valves and therefore had to work with pumps that were being restricted. The Cycle Stop Valve can run pumps at 1 GPM much of the time, which in 16 years with hundreds of thousands of them working, also has proven that 1 GPM is plenty to keep everything cool.

Waterwelldude is right. Do not count on the motor overload to shut the system down or you will have already melted everything.

I did some digging and understand what a shorud is and does so sorry about commenting without knowing what I was talking about.

As my well sets today the Pumptec stops the pump in about 15 minutes from low current. Our household is just my wife and I, so I'm comfortable with 300 gallons of storage, regardless of how I set up the submersible to keep the storage tank topped off.
With the issues around low flow would I be better to set up a timing circuit to run (for discussion sake, till I know the current gpm of my submersible) say something like Pump On 5 minutes / Pump Rest 20 minutes and not restrict the submersible output This would give me somewhere around 500gpd assuming worst case of 2gpm from the submersible at the storage tank. Of course the more gpm I'm pumping the fewer pump/rest cycles I would need to meet an average estimated daily use of 75 gallons per person.

I realize this approach is more start/stops for the pump, however replacing a functioning Pumptec with the Cycle Sensor will add a couple hundred bucks and I have the timing relays so that design is no cost. So I'm asking the experts to weigh-in on which approach you would take.

One other concern is the excessive amount of sand my well produces. I use a whole house filter to capture it. Is there a relationship between pumping my well hard infrequently versus pumping it mildly more often as far as the sand pumped?