Well question, why might this happen?

[Tiempo]

Hubby was taking a shower Sunday morning when all of a sudden the water stopped...no water in the whole house.

He looked at everything (yes, including the breaker!) and couldn't find a reason.

We had planned to call the well people Monday morning, but at 6 am, hubs was sitting at his computer, I was still sleeping, when he heard a gurgling, and then heard the toilet filling up..the water has come on as mysteriously as it had gone off 18 hours earlier.

[Pouncer]

Perhaps you drew down the well and it took that long to recover? It might have happened earlier in the day, depending on the size of your pressure tank if you have one.

That is my best guess anyhow.

[Tiempo]

I don't think so Pouncer, we hadn't been using much water, no laundry or filling the horse trough since Friday.

[Beeman]

When he checked I'm guessing it showed no pressure on the gauge. Did he check voltage through the cutoff and to the pump? If so did it have voltage at the cutoff and then going to the pump? It's much easier to diagnose a problem while it occurring.

[Pouncer]

hmm, I have no idea what the temperatures have been, but if freezing (even partially) can be ruled out, then it is something to do with either pressure tank or well itself.

If you have a pressure tank on the large size, it is entirely possible that you actually "lost" water on Friday, and did not run out until Sunday when the pressure tank ran dry. I have a 50 gallon pressure tank plus about a 40 gallon hot water tank as well. It would take me a couple days to run through all that if I wasn't using much water I would think. I mean just dishes in the sink, cooking, toilets and showers if they weren't too long.

[NCLee]

Agree, that sounds like what happened. Also sounds like your pump had a safety feature that kept the lack of water from burning up your pump.

I'd get someone to check the well. Something could have caused a problem inside the well. Casing failure and you've had a cave in that's reduced the available water. Problem that's affecting your foot valve. Well has been gradually filling with silt/sand from your water vein, something has interruped your water vein. (That's happened to some folks a few miles from us who live near a rock quary. Blasting as disrupted the the natural flow of water between the rock layers.) Or something else...... ?????

I'd try to find out, for sure, what happened. As it may be likely to happen again.

Oh, more more possibiity... if you've been there for a while, the circuit breaker serving your pump may be failing. Don't know how often they cause an intermittent problem. One time when we lost water, it turned out to be the breaker.

Lee

[artificer]

Many of the problems with pumps are the kind that once they show up, the pump will not start working again by itself. (bad capacitors, blown motors, broken wires...)

One possibility is a stuck pressure switch. If you pressure tank setting is too close to the start setting on the pressure switch, it can hang up, and not start. A little vibrations, bump, ghost going past, and it will start again. May keep going for a long time.

Ways to determine what the problem is the next time it shows up: Tap the pressure switch housing. If it kicks on, your switch is going bad, or the air pressure in the tank is set too high. If it still doesn't work, get a multimeter, and check the voltage going to the pump. If its zero, then the switch is malfunctioning. Check air pressure, and if its below the kick on pressure, the switch is bad or adjustment is off. (most likely going bad, since the adjustment shouldn't change by itself)

If you have voltage going to the pump, measured at the pressure switch, then the switch is good, and you have a different problem.

It really pays to have a multimeter to use. Even the cheap $5 harbor freight specials will help tell you what the problems is. They're a whole lot better than the "touch the wire to see if you get zapped" power test. :-)

Michael

[watcher]

I'd check the line going from the tank to the pressure switch. They are small and freeze well before the water line. Once frozen the pressure won't drop making the pressure switch think the tank is full. So you get water until the tank is empty then it stops. When the switch line thaws the pressure drops and the switch kicks the pump back on.

[meanwhile]

I vote for the pressure tank thing OR it could be the Well & Pressure Tank Elves. I promise there are Bad Naughty Well and Pressure Tank Elves who go about doing strange stuff and messing up water lines and so forth. We have had water go on and off and surge and just do weird stuff. Plumbers come and go and the Pump Man comes and no one can find anything wrong and then they look at me like I am nuts. I promise I can hear the Elves laughting their head off in the back ground.

If it is back on, then pray and leave it alone and hope the Elves don't come back.

[agmantoo]

Verify that the bladder tank air pressure, which is set by the schrader valve that is in the top of the tank, is set at 2 lbs or more below the cut in pressure of the pressure switch. This effort is done with the pump power off and the house pumping open and the water ceasing to come out of the faucet. If this test proved OK then remove the pressure switch and see if the small hole in the base of the fitting is clogged. If this is OK, insulated the bottom of the pressure switch and any associate tubing. Your problem should now be eliminated.

[Tiempo]

Thanks everyone, there's lots to chew on here.

One thing it definitely wasn't was ice, it's been very warm here for the time of year.

I'm leaning towards elves

[knight88]

Its caused by Murphy and his law...