This is more of an informational article if you are someone who lives on a well versus city water. I really learned a lot through this experience. Our well kept turning on and off every five minutes even though we were not using water. It concerned me that quite possibly the pump would burn up running so often. I confess prior to this I did not know much about wells but I definitely new something was a miss.

First I tried to diagnose the problem. Near the bottom of our Blue holding tank there is a water pressure gage.

When the pump was off it read 30 lbs on the gage but when it started pumping again it would rise to 48 lbs and then loose pressure again. This tells me that at least water is coming into the house; that the pump is actually pumping water.

So I tried to push on the blue tank to see if it is full….seemed like it was half full!???

Then I called my Dad!  He explained to me that there is a valve at the top of the tank that looks like a valve on the tire of your automobile.

If I took a tire gage just like you would to check the pressure in your tire it will do the same for the Air pressure in the tank. It was holding at 36 lbs. This meant that it was quite possible that there is a leak somewhere and our thought was that it was IN THE WELL. I went around the house checking all hoses and faucets and yes there was no water running anywhere. My dad suggested I call a professional.

To keep the pump from burning up I wanted to shut it off. The only way I could achieve this was to cut the electricity to it at the circuit board. So I did that and called my girlfriends husband Fred Scheer of Scheer Well drilling and repair. That is a nice blessing; I always feel better calling someone I know or is recommended.

I gave him the entire diagnosis and he agreed that either the pump was leaking or a possible leak in the release valve. He came out the next day…I got to work right next to him which was soooo cool. First we checked the release valve by pulling the pump up out of the well part way.

It seemed like it was working fine. Next we pulled the entire thing all the way out….68 feet to be exact.

Wow…I had no idea what we were in for and to my surprise it stretched all the way across my back yard. We found that where the water pipe was attached to the pump was loose and obviously leaking.

Neat Info I learned: He replaced the copper fitting with a Stainless steel fitting. I was a little concerned because if you have copper pipes in your house you do not want to mix it with Black pipe. This causes what they call “Electrolysis” which eats at your pipes and causes holes which leads to leaks. He told me that Stainless steel will not do this with either Black pipe or copper or PVC pipe. Hmmmm interesting!

Well we fixed it got it back in the well. To help prevent any bacteria forming inside the well from all the work done I poured a gallon of bleach into the well. You can also use pool chlorine. This is usually done each time a well is dug or serviced. Then we bypassed the water softener and ran a hose over to the well. When the pump turns on you want to run water into it to push the chlorine or bleach down into the well. Otherwise it just wants to sit on top. We continued this method for a half hour or so. Then I let the hoses run for a while to help purge the bleach through the system. Here are some neat pictures I took as we worked. Hope this doesn’t happen to anyone but at least if it does this article might be helpful.

Have a wonderful week.

Mischele