Another low/intermittent water pressure thread

Let me start by saying, my house is nearly 100 years old as I'm sure you'll know when you see these pictures. Anyway, my pressure seems fine after time to recover, but running just a faucet for 10 minutes it slows. Sometimes almost stops, either way ends up a steady slow flow.

My pump is always very hot and turns on very frequently (every 15-20 mins) it seems it even turns on when no water is being used. I have looked high and low for a water leak, can't find one. My pressure tank sits about 40psi. I have a guage for my tank and one on the pump. The one on the pump ranges 35-55 roughly, this guage begins dropping immediately when a fixture is opened. I don't have a main shutoff valve, so to swap the old faulty guage for the pressure tank I shut power off to pump and ran a sink till it seemed to just level off at a very low pressure (I hoped it would run out to nothing). I checked the pressure in tank with tire pressure guage, nothing. Went to swap guage and sprayed myself in the face, toughed it out and did the quick swap in the name of diagnosing my problem.

Maybe an important piece of information here, my brother installed a dupont brand in-line filter directly after the pump, before the water softener (not sure how my routing should be, I'm sure this is a nightmare to you pros). I'm unsure if this is a deep well or shallow, if there is another submersible pump down there but my well head looks to be 3" plain and simple just capped off. Will grab a picture tomorrow if it matters.

I have new stuff to install and I'd have confidence in doing this myself if I had a main shutoff.

I apologize for odd grammar and poor organization of this post, I am posting from my phone. Anyway here are some pictures, I'll be keeping a close eye on this thread so ask me for any info I left out, chime in with any sort of info. Looking to gain some knowledge and not have to pay anyone to do this. (Unless it's a well issue lol)

I'm obviously pretty clueless when it comes to plumbing matters, and even to me this all looks like a disaster. I hear steel and that odd 3 bolt flange at the pump intake are both pretty darn outdated. Just another thing I'm looking to sort out. I am a mechanic, I have any tool I could need or would be willing to buy it. Pipe wrench to welder, just need the know-how.

Thanks in advance plumbers

Dano5478 said:

My pump is always very hot and turns on very frequently (every 15-20 mins) it seems it even turns on when no water is being used. I have looked high and low for a water leak, can't find one. My pressure tank sits about 40psi. I have a guage for my tank and one on the pump. The one on the pump ranges 35-55roughly, this guage begins dropping immediately when a fixture is opened.

I don't have a main shutoff valve...

Click to expand...

There will be someone along in a while to help you.

I am interested in a professional explaining the type of pump (JET?) to me...

Still on a learning curve...

If the water flowing out the faucet almost stops and you still have 35 to 55 at the pump, then you have a blockage between the pump and the house. That looks like a charcoal filter cartridge, which takes very little to clog up. You need a cloth or paper cartridge instead. I don't think the clog is in the softener because it looks like the bypass valve is open somewhat. Take the cartridge out of the filter and see what happens.

You do have a cut off valve going to the house. Close that valve with the red handle and see if the pump still loses pressure and starts up. If so then your foot valve down in the well is leaking back and needs to be fixed.

It is not good to reduce the size of line going into the pressure tank like that. That line needs to be the same size or larger than the connection to the tank.

It looks like you already have a new tank and pump, which you probably didn't need if the pressure stays 35 to 55 at the pump. 35 to 55 should be plenty of pressure if it is getting to the house. Get one of those gauges you can screw onto a faucet at the house. If that gauge doesn't show the same 35 to 55 as at the pump, you have something clogging the line after the pump. My guess is the filter.

That three bolt thing your talking about is a casing adaptor which is connected to concentric piping which is a small pipe inside of a large pipe. Trying to change the old F&W pump with a different brand (red jacket maybe) won't work, because the new pump won't bolt up to the casing adaptor. I don't advise trying to remove the casing adaptor from the pipes coming into the basement. You will be opening a large can of worms.

I would remove the filter from the cartridge too. But don't replace it. If you know where the bypass on the softener is, put it in bypass and see if your pressure improves. If so, the problem is your softener.

Your tank is also waterlogged and needs to be replaced. The new tank is not the one I would have bought.

About to try the test for leaky foot valve, I have pretty gross water without that filter, I may just try the least effective between paper and cloth. That's good stuff to know.

And speedbump, that's very awesome to know I had a hard time finding info on that as I wasn't sure it had a name. Why wouldn't you have bought that tank? I'm considering taking it back because my tank has and holds pressure that doesn't discharge quick. Also the softener is already bypassed.


Thank you guys. Very helpful.

Just concluded my test, waited for the pump to come on and get up to pressure and closed off the valve to home from pump/tank. The pump still turned on after not very much time. 8 minutes roughly. Also my estimation before was off a bit, pump kicks on almost every 10 minutes or less

The time it takes for the pump to turn on could be because your footvalve is bad and leaking back at about a gallon per minute (with a good tank) or it could be turning on/off because the tank is totally waterlogged which means there is no capacity left and a few drops of water could drop the pressure that quick.

The slow flow after the pump kicks on is probably because the screen in your well is plugging up with mineral. I'm guessing your in Michigan or in that vicinity where concentric piping is code. Most of those wells in the Glacial areas are screened wells. The screens will plug over time and the flow will gradually drop to zero.

I am located in michigan. I'm not sure if I could pin it on the pressure tank because to swap out that gage I turned off the power to the pump and still had a decent bit of pressure for 5 or so minutes at a faucet.

Well, maybe the tank is still good. This leak doesn't have to be the footvalve. It could be a leak in the concentric piping at the pitless adaptor in the yard. It could even be holes in the casing. Concentric piping began in the 60's and two inch wells became a thing of the past in the 70's so it's not terribly uncommon for pipe to rot through over that many years. I can tell you that it is hard to find a driller who will work on a 2" well these days. Don't waste good money after bad trying to fix that one. Just bite the bullet when the time comes and drill a new 5" PVC well with a submersible pump. That's about all they will put in these days.

I'll keep that in mind. Any idea on a ballpark figure what it would cost to have a new well installed? Current one is under a porch with a roof 12 ft above that. Real PITA. Also I'm assuming I should take real action before winter sets in? Well work problem doesn't go very smoothly with a frozen ground, does it?

Drilling goes smoothly. It's the digging to hook the well and pitless adaptor up that is a pain in the butt.
I forgot the price question you asked. I haven't lived in Michigan for over 30 years. When I moved to Florida thirty some years ago Florida was way behind on pricing then. Now, here it will cost about $6500.00 for a 5" PVC well including pump, tank and accessories. I am going to guess Michigan is going to be at least 20% higher.

Where are you in Michigan?

Traverse city. Any easy way to figure out how deep my current well is? Not sure who installed it or if I even have paperwork from it around

Call your local health dept. If there are any records of your well they should have them. Or if you don't get any response there, call the Michigan state health dept.

I know my tank isn't the main problem here but it was certainly faulty. I'm almost done setting it up. Is there any priming procedure to keep in mind? As far as air being trapped under the diaphragm or is it pretty much set pressure and turn pump on? I know to prime the pump but wasn't sure about the tank.

Also I will be properly crimping that pex before doing anything else

No priming needed for a bladder tank. But you will be lucky if the pressure switch doesn't bonce the pump on/off rapidly. The pressure switch is a long way from the tank. It should really be installed down by that pressure gauge.

As long as the pump is full of water, you should be good to go. If the switch does bounce the pump on/off, you can try setting the pressure a little higher.

So I went for the moment of truth and flipped the pump breaker back on. All I got was humming and it sounded like it began to turn and shut off completely. Not realizing I left the power to the pump on, what I believe is the starting capacitor smoked a little. I know I'm looking at replacing at the very least the motor there. Anyway, upon further inspection, the pump will still turn easily(I got an old little serpentine belt in there to roll on it to see if I could flip the power on and help it spin quickly. The pump became hot quick, noteably the capacitor on the outside and around the center of the spec label. With no luck i shut the power off right away and consulted a friend. Says it's more than likely a fried coil. I'm clearly not a plumber and an even worse electrician, I asked if by some astronomical odds I could salvage any parts from that red lion of the same specs to fit the current motor. Or if I could fabricate some sort of adapter to use the red lion motor. (Keep in mind. I do have everything short of a mill or metal lathe).

I'm now looking for opinions from the plumbing community here (speedbump, again thank you for being so helpful and timely in your responses). Is there anything I can rig with my parts pictured in my first post? I'm calling a few local places in the morning for prices on a flint and walling ek10 (I believe that was the model number). Anyway, if not. Would anyone suggest a different pump/motor option for my application?

Here's a picture of what I'm looking at for reference

The start cap (black tube with white label) can be bad. Without a good one, the motor will hum then kick out. The thermal overload will trip in a few seconds. It will cool and start all over again. If you have a start cap in the other motor, try it and see what happens. F&W has never been known for having a good centrifugal switch either. That the start cap and the start points have to work together to get the motor up to speed.

Coil is fried, I've taken measurements that suggest the red lion will bolt directly to my f&w adapter without hassle. Any other reason not to swap that one in? Didn't realize convertible pumps was even a concept.

Not having running water for a few days has made me appreciate the America I live in today. At least it's just water and my Internet isn't down.

Did you take the F&W off to do the measurements? The Red Lion face doesn't look anything like the F&W that I'm familiar with. If it will fit, I would be amazed.

Your right though, that winding is real black. What happens with that is you can't put the smoke back in the motor once it's been let out.