New Homeowner Well Pump Issue

First off, I'm a new homeowner and know very little about wells and pumps and such, so forgive my ignorance.

I have a shallow well with a Sears Hydroglass Jet Pump hooked up to a Sears captive air tank. The pump is in my basement and I know nothing about the condition of the well. The well is hooked up to supply water to the outside of the house... inside is public.

Anyway, today I went to open my pool. Not thinking ahead, I hooked a hose up to the outside spigot and checked to see if the water was running... it was. I placed the other end of the hose in the pool.

After chatting with my neighbor for 15-20 minutes, I checked on the hose and noticed that it was down to a trickle. I unhooked the hose and checked the spigot...same thing.

I went inside and heard a vibrating noise once I entered. I went down to my basement and found that it was the pump making the noise. The pressure gauge on the tank read 0 psi. Fearing that the pump might burn itself out if it was dry, I shut the power off to it.

I now realize that I was stupid to assume that I could fill the pool off the well (the only outside plumbing comes from the well).

First off, is the pump "dry," meaning that I will have to prime it to run it again? Looking at where the priming plug should be in the manual, it seems that the priming plug has been replaced with the pressure gauge, and it looks like the gauge was glued or attached on.

Do I have to do anything with the air bladder in the tank?

My only other option (that I know of) would essentially be to connect the outside plumbing to the public service instead of the pump (I know you can't cross connect the two).

Thank you very much.

Gauges screw into something, unscrew it to prime. And yes you need to prime or at least make sure the pump isn't dry. Then you need to determine if the pump is OK or ruined and how much water is in the well and why you ran out of water.

First off, thanks for your reply.

What can I do to check if the pump is dry?

Unscrew the gauge or what it is screwed into and see if the pump has water in it.

Setting for the winter?

The pump may have just lost it's prime if it set unused all winter. Prime the pump as per Gary's instructions and see if the pump primes up in 2 minutes, if not do it a couple more times. It should be OK. If it doesn't prime you may have a suction leak or defective check valve or last thought a bad well, however I doubt that is the problem.