Higher Pressure Switch

Hello,
We've lived in our house with a well for about 9 years now and by now have certainly gotten used to our 'good enough' water pressure. It's fine for most things but showers are pretty weak and filling a tub for the kids takes pretty much forever (actually we never turn the water off for that). Hey, it makes going on a trip somewhere with city water that much more exciting!

Anyway, I've always wondered if there was some way to increase pressure without taxing something else in the process that is just gonna fail making me wish I never did it. Today I was at a get together and sat with a plumber friend that I rarely see and mentioned it to him. He said it could easily be accomplished by going to a higher pressure switch on my tank. He said I probably have a 30-50 switch and could go to a 60-80. He also said its inexpensive and very easy to change I could do it myself (i'm fairly handy) or he'd help me do it. When I got home I checked my gage on the tank and its at about 40 lbs. My current tank setup is less than two years old. The current switch is probably the original one (house is 20 years old) if that is possible.

As much as I want to believe this I feel like its too good to be true and there must be a downside. If thats all I need why have I never heard of this before?? Anyone have any advice? Thanks!

If you pump can handle the increased pressure, you should be able to do this. Do you know what pump is there? My unprofessional opinion.

switch

If while you are running the water continuously to fill the tub, the pump does not turn off, then a higher pressure switch will not help. If it is going to help, the first thing to do is adjust your switch to its highest setting and see if that is an improvement. If it is, that may be all you have to do.

If you are going to raise the switch pressure and the pump can get up to 70 PSI or so, and you have a bladder tank. It would be a good idea to up the air pressure in the tank before trying the higher pressure. You could rupture the bladder if not.

bob...

Lack of volume is often mis-diagnosed as lack of pressure. 40 psi at the well is generally enough pressure for a house, unless you have a 2 story house maybe, or there is a pretty good elevation change between house and well.
As the other posters have suggested, check things out before you start making big changes.
Ron

And you really don't want to set your switch to 80 psi. That is too high and there should be a pressure relief valve on your 2 year old tank and it blows when the pressure reaches 75 'er thereabouts...

Plus the fact that your pump has to overcome the higher pressure and as Ron says, you actually want more water, not higher pressure. Also, I've never seen a 60/80 pressure switch for a residential well system. Although I'm sure I could adjust one to that, the common settings are 20/40, 30/50 and 40/60. AND you have to have the air pressure in the pressure tank set accordingly as Bob says.

And as HJ says, if your pump and system can't provide what you need at it's currect settings, it won't buid more pressure.

Frankly, IMO, plumbers that don't know all there is to know about this stuff should refrain from saying anything; because they frequently are very wrong and lead DIYers astray. Raising the switch settings causes the pump motor to start more frequently because you get fewer gallons of drawdown out of the tank. More start ups wears the motor out very quickly AND spins your electrical meter faster and that causes the electrical bill to be higher. Starts without the proper length of time off for proper motor cooling kills motors too and that is controlled by the size of the pressure tank which is supposed to provide enough drawdown gallons for at least one minute off between starts... A hot motor causes the thermal overload to open and you have no water until the motor cools enough to start again. So to do this, you more than likely need a much larger tank. The higher pressure, 80 psi!!! puts a hellofa strain on drop pipe and fittings which when they fail, the pump may end up on the bottom of the well or cause leaks in the fittings or drop pipe or underground line to the house. That's because the pump operates at a higher pressure down in the well than the switch is set at to get 80 psi at the pressure tank/switch.... Then the 80 psi will more than likely cause excessive velocity and then water hammer which leads to appliance and plumbing failures... increased velocity increases pressure losses in the plumbing system 'n so on. None of this is good for you.

Gary
Quality Water Associates

Take your own advice Gary. You seem to be very argumentative when you can't sell your product indirectly off of usernet forums lately. Make sure you understand that you have no credentials to spout off about plumbers and their level of expertise; your knowledge is questionable since you get banned at every website you participate in eventually.
Keep the undertones about your opinions about plumbers to an even keel; you spend a great deal of time being jealous of what others have. Knowledge with the state licensing to back it up. The thread starter never once asked your opinion of what you thought of plumbers. Make a point to straighten up.



Vic