Low Water Level Protection

I’ve got a weird one …………… at least I think I do.

As you know, I have been monitoring water level for several weeks now and hoping the darn thing doesn’t go dry. Yes, the water level has been dropping when running, but I haven’t dropped to a level where the pump goes dry.

I received a call this morning from one of my neighbors a couple of streets over. He wanted to know if my sprinkler system was running when I left for work this morning. It was and his wasn’t. As a matter of fact, he stated he didn’t see anyone’s system running on his way out for work. Coincidence?? He also stated this was a first not to see anyone’s sprinkler system running.

Now for the weird part. He stated that 2 days ago he went to use the garden hose and nozzle and there was no water. He went to the breaker box and found the breaker had tripped. He reset the breaker and all was well. Yesterday when he got home he noticed the sprinklers had not run. Once again the breaker was tripped. He reset the breaker and went out to the well site. He could hear a slight hum from down in the well, but there was no water or pressure at the tank. He is assuming the pump was running, but he didn’t have the proper test equipment to verify this was truly the case. In any case, he stated that his well seal has two holes ………….. one for the wiring and the other is unused and not plugged. Air was blowing up through this hole. He stated he’s never felt air come through the hole before. What’s going on here? Weird!

I can’t wait to check my system later today. Hopefully, all is well, but the gauge and ¼” poly pipe I installed a few weeks back will have a pressure reading indicating the lowest water level over the past 24 hours.

With the ¼” tubing for a level indicator, you are the only one who will know what is going on. Everyone else is just guessing. Most wells will blow air when the water level is rising, and suck air when the water level drops. But some wells will blow air and some suck air all the time, or even because of different moon phases. Nothing matters except the actual pumping level in your well.

Thanks Valveman!

So, the air blowing from the well seal opening is not a bad sign or really doesn't indicate anything. I think we were both thinking this may indicate something is awry. In any case, my friend does have well issues and it doesn't look good.

Curiosity got the best of me, so I went home for lunch so that I could take a look at how things went today. Our sprinkler system did complete its entire cycle as the entire lawn looked fresh .................. especially the last two zones, as the grass was still wet. However, the pressure reading on the 1/4" poly tubing had dropped to a new level. Based on the pressure reading, the water level dropped 7 feet sometime during the daily cycle OR I had only 7 feet of water above the pump. Adding air back to the 1/4" poly tubing, returned the pressure reading to a normal state for no activity. So, the well has recovered, but it does appear the well is beginning to have problems producing for our sprinkler system needs. If other neighbors, such as the one mentioned in an earlier post are having issues, then it appears too much water is going out somewhere. Shucks!!!

Has anyone every heard of studies being done to determine where underground water streams originate. I live in central South Carolina and I would assume our underground streams originate from somewhere up in the mountains. Is this a good assumption? I hope this isn't a foolish question!

I have seen some studies for certain areas. They put a dye or tracer in somewhere and look for where it comes out. Still a lot of guesswork. Recording levels in your well is probably more info than you can find from any study. As Ben Franklin said..."You won't know the worth of water until the well is dry".

While we always appreciate help on the forum from professional pump installers, I don't think you are doing much good bringing up these old threads that nobody will reply to.

Also trying to match all the irrigation zones to the GPM of the pump is difficult to do. And if you if accomplish that you are using all the water the pump can produce, so there is nothing left for the house to use if they need it. This way the irrigation always has to run during early morning hours when no one would need water in the house.

I try to show people how to use Cycle Stop Valves so they can run varying amounts of water to the irrigation system without cycling the pump to death. That way the irrigation zones can be a little smaller so there is always water left to use in the house when needed.

Letsrunum said:

It very easy to see what your water well is producing and all you have to do to the irrigation system is use say 15gpm but your pump will produce 20gpm which will leave you 5gpm for your house. Which this should have done before the irrigation system was put in. Cycle stops are good on only irrigation systems not houses if you didn't know that because if you have a tiny leak it will keep the pump on continuously until you fix the leak.

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That is not exactly correct. That size Cycle Stop Valve works at a minimum of 1 GPM. So you would have to be leaking more than 1 GPM for the pump to run continuously. And if you have a leak of more than 1 GPM, it is better for a CSV to make the pump to run continuously than to not have a CSV and let the pump cycle on and off repeatedly, as that would quickly destroy the pump/motor.

I agree that only using 15 GPM on the irrigation would leave 5 GPM for the house if you have a 20 GPM pump. But without a Cycle Stop Valve a 20 GPM pump would cycle itself to death quickly when only using 15 GPM.

Earlier you mentioned matching the irrigation zones to the pump. This would mean all irrigation zones need to be 20 GPM, which is the only way to eliminate cycling when not using a CSV. But again that would not leave any water for house use.

Letsrunum said:

A running toilet would keep a cycle stop running continuously which causes high electric bills & early pump failures.

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A toilet running would also quickly fill your septic system, so it must be fixed anyway. A Cycle Stop Valve would certainly keep the pump running continuously if the toilet was leaking more than 1 GPM. That would increase the electric bill somewhat, but most importantly the CSV will KEEP the pump from failing early like it would if it were cycling on and off.

Letsrunum said:

You should design the irrigation system to keep the pump running and not make the pump shut off. It should have extra pressure to run water in the house if the person designed it right.

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With a CSV you can design the irrigation system for the yard, not the pump. With a CSV you no longer have to design the irrigation to use max flow just to keep the pump from cycling to death. Which when you do design the irrigation system for max pump flow, the pressure just keeps dropping when you use more water in the house. So you no longer have good pressure in the house.

Letsrunum said:

You put a bigger pressure tank that will give you 1min delay time before the pump kicks back in. Thats what the pump companies want.

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There are 1440 minutes in a day. With 1 minute run time you will get a lot of cycles and your pump won't last long. Of course that is what the pump companies want. They like selling pumps. You can't put enough tanks on to do what a CSV will do.

Letsrunum said:

1Gpm is not much. A cycle stop system is like having your foot down all the way on the accelerator pedal and the brake pedal at the same time in a car, when you need water let your foot up on the brake petal. Determine on how much water you need will be on how much you let up on the brake petal. Tell me what that does to the pump on the bottom side of the CSV?

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That one foot on the brake and one on the gas is also what the pump companies tell you. They want you to think a CSV is hard on the pump because just the opposite is true. They just don't want pumps to last as long as the CSV makes it, because again, they like to sell more pumps. 1 GPM is actually 5 times more than is needed to keep the pump cool. And when the CSV makes the pump think it is in a deeper well so it will pump less water, the amps are reduced, the motor runs cooler, which is actually good for the pump. But then again the pumps companies are going to tell you the opposite.

Letsrunum said:

Cycle Stop has quit making the in well cycle stop valve which is the main reason why we stopped using them.

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We stopped making the low lead in well valve because the new Plastic valve CSV125 works much better and cost less. We don't recommend hanging more than 500 pounds from it, but it takes about 5,000 pounds to break it.

Letsrunum said:

You will never make a cycle stop system last as long as a traditional system and time will tell us just that. When you have one last for over 40yrs then get back to me.

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24 years is as long as CSV's have been around, but there are lots of them that old that are still working. They will still be working in 40 years no problem. And we have proven that CSV's make pumps last much longer than normal. Pumps that cycled so much they only last 2-5 years have now been working on CSV's for 20+ years. When you have 40 years experience get back to me.