Regular Maintenance

The water well that we installed at your home should last for many generations. The pump should last for many years (as long as 30 years or more) if you follow this good advice.

1) Cleaning: Keep the area around your pump, tank, or well casing clean and free of dust, sand, weeds, and spider webs. On above-ground pumps, dust, sand, and spider webs are drawn into the motor as the motor intakes air for cooling. This gets into the motor bearings and will eventually cause the pump motor to fail. If your pump is in a garage or walk-in pump house, use a shopvac with a brush to clean around the pump occasionally. If your pump and tank are outside, hose them off with the water hose and wipe them down occasionally. Put plastic and rock down around the pump and tank, or pour a cement slab to help keep the area clean.

2) Ventilation: Keep above-ground pumps well ventilated during warm weather. Never wrap anything around the pump motor that will block the intake vents. If your pump is in a pump house, make sure the pump house has good cross-ventilation so the motor gets plenty of air. The same applies to deep well casings, pressure switches, and tanks. Make sure the tank and pressure switch are not enclosed in a humid pump cover, pump house, or location where they stay wet and/or humid all the time and will rust.

3) Freeze Protection: Do not allow the pump or plumbing at the pump to freeze!

ALLOWING THE WATER TO "TRICKLE" INSIDE YOUR HOME WILL NOT NECESSERALLY PREVENT THE PUMP OR PLUMBING FROM FREEZING. This applies to cased wells with submersible pumps and wells with above-ground pumps. Water does not flow through the pressure switch. The pump, pressure switch, gauge, and plumbing can still be damaged by freezing even if you leave the water running. And leaving the water running causes your pump to "cycle" on and off the entire time that the water is trickling. This puts a lot of extra wear on the pump motor and runs your power bill up.

The same thing applies to a well-built, insulated pump house. A well-sealed pump house will help to hold some heat from the ground, but if it gets cold enough, the pump will still freeze and break inside the pump house. It is important to have some source of heat, such as a 75-watt flood lamp bulb, to add a small amount of heat. The best thing to do is to cover your pump (or deep well pressure switch) and plumbing with a thick sheet of plastic and put the lamp under the plastic. It's not even necessary to cover the entire tank. The tank will not break.

We installed the well and pump that you see here in the old pump house sometime around 1995, where it sat, literally untouched, until the winter of 2009, when it froze and the ceramic seal broke. Since it was a Gould's J+ pump, it was worth tearing the pump down and replacing the seal. While I was at it, I cleaned and painted both the pump and tank. I left it with this plastic and a lamp so it would not freeze again. It should go for another 15 years or more.

Just drape the plastic over the pump and all the pipes. Make sure that the plastic is all the way down to the ground (covering the pipe leading to the tank), and put bricks or something on it to make sure it's sealed up and won't blow off if it's exposed to wind. Now you're heating only a few square feet under the plastic and not trying to heat the entire pump house with a light bulb. Do this inside the pump house, even if you have a nice pump house.

Some people use a small fan-forced heater if they are heating the whole pump house. The 75-watt flood light would certainly be a lot less expensive and safer. Make sure the lamp does not touch the plastic and is positioned safely so it does not come into contact with anything that would burn. A lamp fixture with a metal shade is the safest. When it warms up, don't forget to remove the plastic so the pump gets plenty of fresh air during the warm months.

Protect pipes under your home or out in the yard with heat strips and insulation if necessary.

In the links below, you will find a link to a merchant that sells wireless remote switches and heat strips. These can also be purchased at Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot. You can plug a wall receiver into a 110-volt outlet and then plug the lamp into the receiver. You can then use a wireless remote to turn the lamp on and off without walking out of the pump house. If you left a 75-watt bulb running from November to March, it would still cost less than a dollar, so just leave it on if you're likely to forget.

In the example on the left, you see what can happen if you allow the pump to freeze. This one broke the motor bracket, and when this happens, I just throw the pump away and install a new one. It's a very expensive mistake. This system had been here for a long time, and the owner had not even invested the time to level around the pump or build any type of pump enclosure, as it was explained in great detail to him. There was a plastic storage area behind the pump that should have been built around the pump instead. It doesn't take a lot of effort to prevent this

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DON'T LET YOUR PUMP OR PIPES FREEZE!

Protect your water treatment equipment the same way if it is subjected to freezing weather. You can cover the top of the unit and plumbing with a large plastic bag and put a mechanic's light or some other type of lamp under the plastic bag. Make sure the lamp does not come into contact with the plastic or the pipes.

4) Rust Protection: After a period of months (or years if your pump is in a good location) and the pump and/or tank begin to rust, wire brush the pump and lightly sandpaper the tank. Spray a good coat of primer, then top coat paint on both. Tape off the pipe fittings for a neat job. If you use Rustoleum, this will probably be a better paint job than the manufacturer did and will last for years.

Taking care of your water well equipment takes only a FEW minutes and will save on unnecessary repairs and eliminate the inconvenience of being out of water!

Checking the tank pressure and pressure switch

Here's what you need to know to check and adjust the air pressure in the tank and the pressure switch settings on residential systems. This is the most important thing, but few people understand how to do it. Apparently this includes a lot of the other well drillers since we see them all the time that were never set correctly. Most of the pumps that we replace, especially submersible pumps, are the result of a bad tank and/or an improperly adjusted pressure switch. If either of these settings are incorrect, the pump can "cycle" on and off continuously or more frequently than it should. This causes a lot of extra power consumption (running up your power bill) and puts a lot of wear on the pump. This usually results in a burned-out pump and an expensive repair.

This is not rocket science, but DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WORK ON THE PRESSURE SWITCH OR ANY ELECTRICAL COMPONENT IF YOU DO NOT HAVE GOOD BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS AND GOOD GENERAL MECHANICAL APPTITUDE. Instead, call us for service on your water system or water treatment system.

First, read the section above about cleaning around your equipment, and do that. Make sure there are no chemicals, oil, paint, or pesticides stored around your water well equipment, and clear the area of any overgrowth or trash.

1) There must be a spigot, water pressure gauge, and cut-off valve at the pump or top of the well casing. (See figure 1) If there is not, then you have some plumbing to do, or you should call us for service. The tank must never be isolated from the pump by a ball valve. Notice that the pipe runs from the pump to the tank, and the cut-off valve is after a "T." So when the cut-off valve is closed, water will still pass freely between the pump and tank. If you don't have a water pressure gauge, then you can't set anything. The water pressure gauge and hose bib (spigot) are between the pump and tank, so they would work when the ball valve is off.

2) If the power is on and the pump has been working, then cut the valve going to the house off and connect a short water hose (with no kinks) to the spigot and open it fully. Look at the pressure gauge to see how much pressure the pump is running at when the spigot is fully open. A good water well system will run the hose wide open at good pressure. A less productive well would be running at 10–20 psi, and a productive well would be running the spigot at 40 psi or more. Using a watch, you can capture and measure the water in a 5-gallon bucket or graduated mop pail, so you will have an idea of the gallons per minute (gpm) your pump is yielding. Then you'll know if I ask later.

If you have an above-ground pump, you can hear the pump running. If you have a sub, you might have to put your hand on the pipe at the well casing to feel the pump running, or you might hear it vibrating. Listen and watch for a couple of minutes. If the pump is cutting on and off, then the pressure switch has been set to low and the pump is cycling.

Close the spigot and watch the pressure gauge. The pump should build pressure and shut off. This is the "cut-off" pressure and is determined by the setting on the pressure switch.
(See figure 3) A new pressure switch comes with a factory cut-off setting of 40 or 50 psi. However, a shallow-well jet pump may build 70 psi, and a submersible pump may build over 100 psi. So I'll tell you how to test the pump's pressure output and set the pressure switch. Pressure switches usually have a 20-pound range, meaning that they cut on at 20 psi and off at 40 psi, 25–45, 30–50, and so forth.

What we often find is that some guy (or well, driller/repairman) replaced the pressure switch a while back and just left it at the factory 40 psi setting. So when there should have been 80 psi of pressure in the house, his pump has been "cycling" on and off between 20 and 40 psi. The pressure in the house has been terrible, and the pump has been under a tremendous amount of stress. If you walk up to a well system and there is no gauge, then the previous installer or repairman was a slacker. You can't adjust any of these settings without a pressure gauge.

3) First, let's make sure there is some air pressure in the tank. Cut the power off to the pump. Open the spigot and let all of the water pressure go. The water pressure gauge should drop to 0. Find the air valve on the diaphragm tank. This is usually at the top. (See figure 2) If you have a horizontal tank, it may be on the end. It's just like the air valve on your car tires. If you have a galvanized tank, call us for advice. There are some different considerations with galvanized tanks. Make sure there is at least 15 pounds of air pressure in the tank. If the air pressure is at 0 and the tank feels full of water, it is probably bad. When all of the water pressure in the system is drained, the tank should be light. If the pressure was 0 or low, then use a compressor and fill it up to at least 15 psi. If the tank holds pressure, then proceed to the next step. We'll put the proper amount of air in the tank after we check the pressure switch. If the tank won't maintain pressure, then stop there and call us for service.

Submersible Pump

If you have a tank and well casing like the submersible pump pictured here, then you probably have a deep well. However, we can do a screened well 25' deep and use a submersible pump in a 4casing just like this. It would appear to be a deep well, but it is actually a shallow well with a submersible pump. Usually, a setup like the one pictured at the top would be a shallow well, and the one pictured at the bottom would be a deep well. AT THIS POINT, THE POWER SHOULD STILL BE OFF. Read the rest of this section fully before proceeding.

Locate the pressure switch, and using a 3/8" nut driver (blue handle), turn the nut on the cut-off adjustment clockwise (tighten) until it is down about ¾ of the distance to the bottom. (figure A) Do not overtighten it and damage it. (Note: Most good pressure switches are similar to the one shown at the left.). The taller post is the cut-off adjustment. The directions are normally under the lid. Do not adjust the cut-in pressure. (You may loosen it if you think someone may have adjusted it.) We've increased the cut-off setting so that now we can cut the power back on and the pump will not shut off. Make sure the spigot is closed, and watch the water pressure gauge.

We can now see just how much pressure the pump will build. When the pump reaches its' maximum pressure, open the spigot to release the pressure and CUT THE POWER BACK OFF. DO NOT RUN THE PUMP FOR MORE THAN 1 MINUTE WITHOUT OPENING THE SPIGOT. Turn the adjustment nut counter-clockwise (loosen) about ½ of the adjustment. Cut the power back on and open the spigot until the pump is running. Close the spigot and watch for the pump to cut off. Cut the power off and increase or decrease the tension on the spring. Cut the power back on and check the cut-off pressure. Repeat this process until the pump is cutting off comfortably below its maximum pressure, which is about 7 pounds. Submersible pumps built to 90 psi or more pressure should not be set over 80 psi or the pressure rating of the tank.

** If you are a skilled technician, ALTERNATIVELY, WITH THE POWER ON and using a pair of INSULATED PLIERS, compress the plate on the bottom of the pressure switch (Figure B) as illustrated, hold the switch closed until the pump reaches its' maximum pressure, and then release the plate. This is a lot quicker, but be sure to use insulated pliers and DO NOT TOUCH ANY OF THE ELECTRICAL PARTS OR WIRING IN THE PRESSURE SWITCH OR YOU MAY BE SHOCKED. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE WET OR STANDING IN WATER. Use extreme caution when working with the pressure switch around water.

4) Finally, set the air in the pressure tank by cutting the power off and opening the spigot to release all of the water pressure. Now check the air pressure in the tank with your tire gauge (see figure 2) and ADJUST IT TO 3 PSI BELOW THE "CUT-IN" PRESSURE. For example, if the pump is cutting off at 60 psi and on at 40 psi, adjust the air pressure in the tank to 37 psi.

5) Test by running a full flow of water through the hose into the ditch or garden for 30 minutes, then cut the spigot off and make sure the pressure builds up and the pump cuts off properly. The pump should reach its' cut-off pressure and shut off quickly without straining or wasting power. If you fill the swimming pool and run the hose for hours (or days), when you finally shut the water off, walk over to the pump and make sure it builds pressure and cuts off properly. Suppose you wired a green indicator lamp into the pressure switch and mounted it outside the pump house. You could glance over and see if the pump was running at any time. You get the point.

** If you ever notice that your water pressure is inconsistent or "surging" or if you expect any problem with your water system, cut the power off right away and call us for service or advice.

**Avoid "cycling" the pump for long periods of time. When you run water sprinklers (especially one at a time), check the pump to make sure it is not cutting on and off. If it is, then run two or three sprinklers at once. You're paying the same amount for electricity to run one sprinkler as you would for running three or four sprinklers at the same time. If you can run three or four sprinklers at once, then do it and reduce the operating cost and wear on the pump. Drip irrigation is very likely to cycle the pump.

** The pressure switch should not come out of adjustment. Keep it clean, and keep ants and insects out of it. Blow or brush it out if it gets dirty.

** You should check the tank pressure annually or more often if it is very old. Check the tank pressure if you see your water pressure doing anything unusual, like surging. Use a regular tire gauge, cut the power off, and drain the water pressure first.