Water Well Pump Problems – Can you help?

Shallow well pump used for rain water irrigation

Shallow well water pump used for rain water irrigation

So I started working on my rain water collection/distribution system at my house again for spring. (Check out the system in this previous post) The tanks are almost full of about 500 gallons of pure refreshing Seattle rain water, but the pump won’t hold enough pressure to shut off, and stay shut off. You see it’s has a pressure activated switch which turns on at 40 psi and shuts off at 60 psi. It should hold that pressure until a tap it opened, hose nozzle squeezed etc. But as you can see in the above video something is wrong.

I just added this 4 gallon pressure tank in the hopes that it would fix my problem but no dice. Hopefully one of my readers has experience with well pumps and can identify my problem.

 

This is my current rain water irrigation setup:

 

Flotec fp4012 1/2 hp shallow well water pump

WaterWorker HT-4B In-Line Pressure Well Tank, 4-Gallon Capacity


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1 Response

  1. ShaneC says:

    Hello, just stumbled across your page and noticed your question! I think your check valve is faulty, as that the only place the water pressure could go is back into the main tank if it’s not leaking.
    The pressure tank is sort of a mini water tower making it so that every time you open the valve, the pump won’t have to run, since starting the electric motor draws the most current. If your main use is to open the valve all the way and water plants, the pressure tank (at least one that small) won’t be useful. If you’re going to fill 1/2 gallon (or less) up here and there, the 4 gallon pressure tank will be useful. Our house has a 30 gallon pressure tank so that every time you wash your hands or fill a glass, the pump (usually) won’t run.