Mysterious Problem

[Highbeams]

Hi, all-

We're on well water, the pump is 125' deep, it feeds into a 12,5oo gallon storage tank, which feeds to a booster pump that is plumbed to two Red Jacket pressure tanks. I'm not sure about the gallonage of the tanks, they're about four feet tall, and they supply the house.

Recently I've noticed two phenomena:
1. The toilets all fill in 1 second spurts, 1 second on, a second off, until full.
2. The reverse osmosis drain tube is noticeably louder in the kitchen. Before you had to 'listen' to hear it, now you can hear it when you come into the kitchen.

I drained both Red Jacket tanks and they both had 45psi. I just went and checked them full and realized I shouldn't have cheaped out on my pressure gauge because it only goes to 50PSI, but the gauge stopped above 50, around where 55 would have been printed.

I bought another cheap gauge at Home Depot (it looked pretty good in the package, but once I got it out...) that fits on a hose bib. That registers 60PSI when the tanks are full and drops to almost 40PSI before the booster pump comes on.

I'm really at a loss for what could be malfunctioning.

Anyone have any suggestions? It's really bugging me that I can't figure this out!

Best,

Chris

 

[Reach4]

I bought another cheap gauge at Home Depot (it looked pretty good in the package, but once I got it out...) that fits on a hose bib. That registers 60PSI when the tanks are full and drops to almost 40PSI before the booster pump comes on.

How long does it take for the pressure gauge to drop from 60 to 40?

How long does the pump run to take the pressure from 40 to 60? You would like to see a minute or more.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Sylvan]

Ideally any type of gauge because of the bourdon movement should be as follows

A low pressure steam boiler would have a gauge showing 30 PSI even though the safety valve is set for 15 and many
low pressure steam boilers operate under 2 PSI

Scale should be be about double the actual pressure required to get a more accurate reading

Dealing with 40 PSI buy an 80 PSI gauge oil filled is better to prevent shocking of the movement from pulsating pumps