Low Pressure

[Gary Bowling]

I have a small piece of property I recently purchased. It has a submersible pump and a small pressure tank. There was a house, but it's no longer there, so the valve to the old property is shut off. The tank is in a 6ft hole and there is just one yard spigot right next to the hole. The tank is very small, maybe 10 or 20 gallons.

When I turn the pump on, it comes on but the tank seems to never fill and the pressure gauge says it has about 12 lbs pressure on it. When you open the spigot, it goes down to about 6 PSI. I thought the pressure switch needed adjusting, but adjusting it does nothing. From holding on to the pipe, it seems like the pump is running all the time, just getting very low pressure.

I'm wondering if the pump might be bad or maybe there is a leak between the pump and the tank. But I can't seem to find a wet spot in the yard or hear anything down the well.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Reach4]

I'm wondering if the pump might be bad or maybe there is a leak between the pump and the tank.

Those are possible choices, with the leak being under water. One other thing to check is what is the voltage between the outside terminals on the pressure switch?

How deep is the well? The old owner or the county might be good places to find out.

What diameter?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Gary Bowling]

Those are possible choices, with the leak being under water. One other thing to check is what is the voltage between the outside terminals on the pressure switch?

How deep is the well? The old owner or the county might be good places to find out.

What diameter?

Thanks for the reply. I went down after I got your message with a meter to check some of the things you mentioned and low and behold it was working! So that at least rules out a broken pipe. I'll keep an eye on it and see how it goes, I don't know what could be intermittent and cause that.

I suspect it will happen again, we'll see. Fortunately it's not my house or primary water.