Issues With Pump House Pressure

We're having issues with the well house's pump pressure and motor over at the Lab. Please have a look and provide any guidance you can.



From the video description:

We're encountering serious issues with the water system here. Although I did not install the water system, we're trying to use it on a near-daily basis and are looking for help in diagnosing the problem. This video depicts the water pressure gauge found in our pump house.

Two big issues: water pressure is low or non-existent at the hydrants spread across the property, and the cistern doesn't seem to be filling. It's estimated to have about 7 or 8 inches of water in it, at the moment.

To Sum It Up:
- pump turns on, as per usual. Battery power reads 89% (it's an off-grid, solar-powered system for both the well and the pump house).
- A cycle begins: pressure builds up to about 20psi, but then suddenly drops down to 1 or 2psi. If the motor doesn't shut itself off, then the cycle will repeat.
- I've attempted bleeding the line both while the pump is working, as well as while it is not. There is some gurgling, but while the pump is running this seems to clear up and water flows as expected.

I thought of a few possible reasons why things aren't working like they ought to, though I am far from an expert and this is all based solely on observation and not book-learning:
- the cistern is too low for water to come through the plumbing to the pump house.
- there's an airlock somewhere between the cistern and the pump.
- the motor in the pump house isn't strong enough.
- the well pump is going bad or is done.
- there's a leak somewhere between the cistern and the pump (this seems the most unlikely, in my opinion).

Any ideas? Please comment here. Thanks in advance!

Do you have an air bladder in the system near the pump?.
20 Litre may be the smallest you should have.
The electronics on the pump may be crook, its happened to my pumps.

Question: do you have valves to shut off water supply past the pressure gauge?

If you had a leak between supply inlet and pump, you’d get no water.  All you’d get is air.

If you had a leak beyond the pump house, pressure would be consistent but pressure would never build past a certain point.

It’s possible there is enough water in the cistern to prime, but then you pull out enough to lose prime, causing the pressure drop and the cycling.  You should be able to observe this in action.

It’s also possible you have a developing pump issue.

Good luck.

Assuming you'd rather troubleshoot for yourselves rather than call a well guy, I think I'd try to establish the following:

1) Why is that air in the line?
2) How accurate is your pressure gauge?
3) If the pressure IS that low, why is the pump shutting off?

I'd be tempted to address the air first. Pressurized air and pressurized water behave differently, because air compresses. When they're alternating, (you have bubbles) things can be so erratic it's tough for a lay person to diagnose. So, how could the air be entering?

Any kind of leak, including having a hydrant or faucet open during low or negative pressure.

Having the ground water level drop below the pipe inlet. I doubt this is it; I'd expect you to get nothing but air until the water table rose again.

Dad had weird trouble with air in the lines once. (I think it was bubbly with weird pressure like yours, but my memory is fuzzy.) Our setup has a schrader valve. (Like where you put air in a tire.) I didn't see one in your video, but you surely have one or another part that does the same job. The idea is that when there's pressure in the line, the schrader valve shuts. But when the pump shuts off and water is drawn out of the pipe, it opens a little and lets in air. It's located so the air goes to the top of the pressure tank. Right or wrong, dad decided the valve core needed replaced. He had some in a tool box and a tool to change it with, so he swapped it out. The well was never right again until the well guy came out. Turns out the valve stem for a tire has a different spring than the one that belongs in the well house. Wrong spring changed the behavior. I think it took in too much air, but fuzzy memory. Maybe it took in no air. (Also bad, but doesn't match your syptoms.)

If you don't have a story like that, I think I'd try to isolate the pump from the system for testing. Close the ball valve at the right hand side of the manifold, then try running the pump. If the behavior is the same, remove the union back by the pressure tank and cap that line. (At this point, if everything were working perfectly, the pressure switch would shut off really fast, since you only have a few feet of pipe to pressurize. That's expected, not a symptom.) Now open the drain valve/ hose bib. Maybe put a hose on and run it outside, the goal is to run it a few minutes and try to purge out the air. If it works, the air is entering at the tank or somewhere in the (post-pump) lines. If it doesn't work, the air is entering at the pump or the (pre-pump) lines.

I could yammer on some more, but if you can get that info, you can get more useful targeted advice.

By the way, is there a submersible pump? The podcast episodes about the well made me think so, but that sure looks and sounds like an above ground pump just left of the manifold.

Thanks for everyone taking the time out to respond here. A plan of action is being cobbled together.

- yep, isolate the hydrants from the pump and pressure tank and see what happens when we manually turn on the pump.
- check the pressure level inside the pressure tank. Add air if necessary.
- if everything's nominal, work on bleeding out air from the lines.

I'll have a go at this list of trouble-shooting steps today.

We've replaced two hydrants this calendar year. It doesn't seem like any more of them are damaged, failing, etc. So if it's not something close, then it's possible there's a buried line somewhere that has problems.

Regarding the submersible pump: we have one on-site, but it's not part of this system. The water is gravity-fed from the cistern into the pump house. As the cistern hasn't been filling, it may be that we're not able to draw enough water into the line from there for some reason.

Also, it's known that the local well companies are not interested in working with a solar-powered well system (unless one agrees to be charged exceedingly high rates, of course), so we've not reached out to them yet about this.

Thanks again to everyone's responses. Should anyone have additional suggestions, please drop 'em in here. It's appreciated!

Here's a brief update on how things stand.

I checked the pressure inside the pressure tank, and it was very low. I filled it to the recommended 48psi and I will have a look at it tomorrow to see if there is any change.

After filling that tank with air, I closed-off the water line leading out to the hydrants, and activated the pump. Pressure seemed to hover round 20psi with little change. At least there's no fluctuations at this point. Once a steady stream of water would start out of the relief valve, pressure would gradually drop, and then the motor would again shut off on its own. Opening the relief valve when the pump was not running resulted in air and glugs of water until only air would escape, then nothing else.

We're still very low on water in the cistern, so allowing that to refill is the priority. It ought to run the well's pump without the pump house running, and with an ample supply of water we'll literally have more to work with. It's forecast to be rainy and cloudy all day today, so tomorrow ought to be the first time we'll have any appreciable increase in water levels. Leaving the hydrants cut off for now.