pre-charged or old-school pressure tank?

my pressure tank has sprung a leak and is rusting out. I have a band-aid on it and will need to replace it very soon. I am having trouble finding draw-down numbers for the tanks I see online, and I don't know what kind of tank to buy. I currently have an old 80 gal. steel tank. I saw equivalent ratings for smaller tanks, but I also heard this was B.S. I have a in pipe and an out pipe on my tank, but the pre-charged tanks only have one hole? The tank is outside of a 3/2 house with a sprinkler system for a normal back/front yard, aprox. 40 ft well that has not run dry, yet. Anyone want to school a newbie?

get a bladder type tank and use the equivalent ratings, they are close enough although bigger is always better because it will give you longer cycle time for the pump which is better than constantly cycling on and off which is what a smaller tank will do. If you want to spend even more money you can go with a very small bladder tank and a cycle stop valve but besides the mo-money, you have to cut into the well line to install it.

If the tank is just for a sprinkler system, the sprinklers should be tuned to run the pump constantly. The large tank is optional.

Tom Sawyer said:

If you want to spend even more money you can go with a very small bladder tank and a cycle stop valve but besides the mo-money, you have to cut into the well line to install it.

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He mentioned a 3/2 house, which makes me think the well is also used for the house. So the pressure tank is necessary. An 80 gallon bladder tank only holds 25 gallons of water, but is still equivalent to a much larger standard tank.

Some Cycle Stop Valves only cost 90 bucks. But even with a $200 Cycle Stop Valve, you only need a $100 tank. So the Cycle Stop Valve system is much less expensive than a large pressure tank, which BTW won’t do nearly as good a job as the CSV and smaller tank. And you are still going to have to cut into the line to install a new tank, so adding the CSV and small tank will be even easier.

The CSV system is not for everyone. It is only for those who want to educate themselves and eliminate all the problems associated with old style pressure tank only systems, make their systems last longer, and work better. You are already on the Internet, so just a few more clicks and you will be more educated than most professional pump installers.