leaking tank, need some input

OK well guys, this is what I have.

A freind of mines mother owns a small ranch and is having some issues with the old equipment.

so coming out of her well the pipe goes to a 500 gallon tank that I have been told used to have an air compressor bolted to the top, it still has the gauge and pressure switch on it that is being used. I was also told that the newer blue bladder tank that is maybe 40 gallon was installed a few years back and before that it was not there. Now her problem is the large old galvanized tank is leaking at a weld. I am trying to see if we can just delete that big old tank and run just the smaller working bladder tank or if it will cause some issues.

If she is using a lot of water, the 40 gallon bladder tank might cause the pump to cycle too often, and shorten the life of the pump. The 500 gallon tank would offer a lot more time between pump cycles, and there might have been a good reason for that.

Even though the smaller bladder tank is the only one giving that pressure to the larger tank? The larger tank is only holding water at the moment.


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The big one is probably waterlogged if the compressor is bad.

Like Phish said, you may end up cycling the pump too much. I would have her use water like she normally does and just watch the gauge to see what the pump is doing. If the bladder tank isn't large enough, they make much larger ones and if necessary you can gang several together. My largest Zilmet tank gives a 52.8 gallon draw down at 30/50 pressure switch setting.

Do you know what horsepower the pump is or anything else about it?

If you do end up going with more bladder tanks; go with either Well X Trol, Flexcon (uses several different model names) or Zilmet. Stay away from everything else. All three have 5 year warranties.

On the big one the compressor is completely gone and missing, they removed it when they added the bladder tank.

Don't know anything about the pump but the pressure switch is a 60-80 with a bad gauge so to even see what is there I need to replace the gauge. I did turn it down to lower the pressure because of the leak. It is coming from a crack in the weld and I don't have faith in the tank holding together too much longer and it was spraying with so heavy pressure.

The house is uphill from the well and tank maybe a 60-75 foot elevation change if that changes anything, so far they have had no issues with water pressure or volume at the top by the house.

I would hate to bypass this old tank and then cause issues with the pump. I am doing this as a favor for them also so the costs will likely come out of my pocket so I would like to keep them down if possible.

The reason for the 60/80 is probably because of the elevation, or maybe the plumbing or both. Without changing the gauge, you could manually press down on the switch plate to start the pump. Let it shut off, then run water to see how long it takes to come back on. That will give you an idea of whether the big tank is waterlogged or not. A 40 gallon or so bladder tank would only give you about 4 - 5 gallons with that high of a setting on the switch.

The big thing is the pump cycling a lot. If it comes on and goes off every 20 minutes or so, no big deal.

So even if that big tank is water logged it will still have some benefit to the system?

I'm trying to understand that.

The big tank I am pretty sure has no bladder in it. If you open the valve the air tank used to hook up to you get full pressure of water. I believe at this point it is just a tank of water.


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Without a compressor or air in it, that tank is just a large piece of pipe. It is doing nothing but waiting to pop open and leak everywhere.