Shallow well pump pressure question

snowshoehair · #1 04/19/14, 05:47 PM

I have a shallow well pump hooked up to a holding tank for my water source. Too much arsenic in the water in this area, plus the water table is way down there for a well.

Anyway, I digress. I came home from work the other day and the pump was running and running. The pump was very warm, motor area was hot to touch, copper pipes quite warm to touch. Not "hot" but very warm... no smoke or fire. Shut it down and thought it might be the pressure switch. My holding tank needs replacing this summer and there are rust particles in the water. I thought the pressure switch or the tubing to it might be gunked up and it was... replaced the switch and cleaned out the little tube, etc and got everything back together.

It's running now but it seems to take a bit longer than usual for it to get up to the pressure point where it shut off. I was wondering if the heat may have damaged something? Or maybe there is air that needs to get worked out of the line... or some other reason y'all might know about?

farmrbrown · #2 04/19/14, 06:21 PM

I helped a neighbor recently with his and had some of the same issues.
You may have some damage from the heat but I'll tell you what to check first.
The threaded connection to the pump inlet and outlet.
When his overheated it melted and warped the fittings so they started leaking. Any leaks in the line will cause it to lose pressure and run longer. Just take a look.

snowshoehair · #3 04/19/14, 06:31 PM

It did develop a leak at the fitting where the little tube goes into the pump but that was the only one I found. I cleaned the threads up and put new putty on the threads so now I don't see anything leaking.

It gets up to pressure but it seems to sort of hang just under the shut off point for longer than it did before. I'm hoping it just needs to get sort of "limbered up" after being taken apart and the new switch put on.

larryfoster · #4 04/19/14, 08:37 PM

When I had a shallow well, I had to change the impeller occasionally after the pump heated up.

Not terribly expensive

agmantoo · #5 04/20/14, 09:38 AM

Reset the cutout pressure on the pressure switch. Are you positive that you got the exact same pressure pressure switch with the same preset setting as the old one had? On jet pumps I seldom use a pressure switch other than a 20/40 setting. PS...is this a shallow or a deep well jet pump system?

snowshoehair · #6 04/20/14, 04:11 PM

It's a shallow well pump, Agman, set up is in the corner of the garage and we have an underground holding tank for our water.

The bad switch came with the pump and no one here carries that same particular switch by itself. I wanted to upgrade to one with a low pressure cut off anyway, as long as I was taking it apart. We only seem to have a choice of a 30/50 or a 40/60 around here. I took the 30/50 because we really don't need very high pressure in the house and have been trying to tune it down to the lower side since yesterday.

I've just noticed that it gets up to about 43 psi and seems to just keep running longer than it needs to before it finally shuts off... like it "wants to" go to 44 psi and finally gives up.

The pump used to shut off as soon as it hit it's target. I swatted the side of the switch once yesterday when it was hanging and it shut off.... which made me wonder if there was some sort of a breaking in going on. My other thought was if the pump may have gotten hot enough to partially damage something inside.

agmantoo · #7 04/20/14, 04:58 PM

Go here http://inspectapedia.com/water/Press...Nut_Adjust.htm

Turn the nut at the green arrow counter clockwise 1 complete turn and see if that fixes the issue you are having. Post your results.

logbuilder · #8 04/20/14, 05:30 PM

Do you have a pressure tank? If so, you might need to recharge it. I set mine for 2 psi below the cut-in on the switch.

snowshoehair · #9 04/23/14, 12:05 AM

Agman, I really, really appreciate the website you turned me onto! Great info and helped me learn how the switch works....not to mention being an amazing reference for other things.

Since my goal was to set the cut-in and cut-out range a little lower than the factory setting, I had turned the big nut counter clockwise a bit. I reasoned that maybe I needed to turn the small nut a quarter turn counter clockwise to match up with it and that seems to have done the trick. The article says the two settings need to be somewhat in sync. BTW - I've discovered that I need to change out my check valve also but the pump does seem like it's old self now.

Thanks again for everyone's help!