Completed pressure tank upgrade

[FliesLikeABrick]

Figured I would share the pressure tank upgrade we implemented, curious about observations/feedback or anyone's similar experiences

We bought our house about 5 years ago, and don't use a ton of water but I couldn't help but notice the fairly short cycle times on the well during our higher-draw activities, and during the summers as our garden footprint has been growing. The existing tank is 20 gallons with a ~6 gallon operating volume. I opportunistically started brainstorming a pressure tank upgrade, knew it was worth going for basically the largest tank available, but didn't have a strong driver to spend that money.



Then there was an industrial auction nearby that had an old drill press I was bidding on... they also had a lot of 2x 120 gallon pressure tanks, stated as new/unused (around 5 years old) with the factory plugs still installed, one of which was still in the factory box. Seemed like a good opportunity for our upgrade, I threw the opening bid of $25 on and knew it was worth bidding up to at least $200, these tanks each are something like $800 if you bought them new today


Well I guess nobody at this industrial auction was here with these in mind because I brought the pair home for $25+fees




I ended up selling the nicer one (the one in box had zero cosmetic wear/tear whereas the other one had been bumped around in the warehouse) on Craigslist, and now it's time to make room for the upgrade in the basement


Moved the dehumidifier elsewhere, and needed to move the water softener closer to the water heater, this would let the new tank go next to the old one and tee in more easily.


Extended the water softener drain lines to the sump pit, and needed to deal with the inlet/outlet




I'm not thrilled about this, but at the time was thrown off about the hoses that the water softener has been installed with. If I recall, they were NPT but had sealing washers in them - I could not find longer equivalents for sale locally, so instead used PEX with female NPT adapters (and sharkbite to copper on the other end). I am not crazy about this outcome, and whenever the day comes to replace our water softener I will solve this differently.


To tie the new tank in, I replaced an 3/4 elbow near the existing tank with a tee


and adapted the new tank down from 1-1/4 NPT to 3/4 for a stub of tubing to come out from underneath




Continuing the post into the first reply due to attachment limit

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

I did sweat everything together from the tee down towards the tank, except for a sharkbite 90 at the stub from the tank itself. This is so that I can disconnect and open the system somewhere to unthread the t

ank in case of replacement/leak/fixes/future changes. An alternative would be to add a drain cock or just cut the tubing in the future, but I thought this was reasonable.







completed this just as we added a sink for washing garden produce, it was nice to have this done before the sink constrained direct access (but there is still plenty of room to fix/replace anything in that corner



Things I would do differently:

• I would have liked to know that the tanks were on the 3rd story of a warehouse before bidding (no lift available during pickups)
• I am not thrilled about the water softener hookups, I should have disconnected and identified those hoses/connections more throughly before getting into this project. I am sure it is not a mystery, but I was underprepared
• I used type M copper tube, but perhaps should have used L
• If the existing plumbing downstream of the existing tank was 1", I would have liked to extend 1" to the new tank so the pump is not potentially facing a restriction when running. Perhaps it would have been worth the effort to eliminate the 3/4" restriction between the two tanks. If I wanted to go crazy, I could do an experiment: Disconnect the new tank at the sharkbite 90, cap it, measure the current the pump is drawing during a couple cycles. Reattach the new tank, measure the running current during a few cycles and compare. If the current is higher with the new tank in the system then it means the restriction is likely factoring in and I should remove the 3/4" restriction.

As you would expect, the new tank substantilaly reduced our pump duty cycle and more importantly our cycle count per day. With the old tank it probably ran 2-10x/day and now we only run once every day or two during typical non-gardening-season days

Thanks for reading, I appreciate any feedback

 

[sarg]

My attempt to reduce pump cycles in our system was to replace the check valve ( mine was next to the tank T just like yours ) with a cycle stop valve.

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

My attempt to reduce pump cycles in our system was to replace the check valve ( mine was next to the tank T just like yours ) with a cycle stop valve.

Ah yeah that makes sense. In my case it wasn't excessive cycling but rather expected cycles due to water demand. If I ever have a problem with the foot valve on my pump (or similar nuisance cycling due to leakdown) I will need to fix it - my setup doesn't have any kind of check/stop valve by the tank because we have outdoor hydrants and an outbuilding that is fed from the same pressure tank, so it needs to be able to flow back out into the yard from the tank

 

[sarg]

OK.. but
Your picture shows a check valve next to your pressure gauge.
And .... All submersible pumps have an attached check valve .... otherwise the system would not hold pressure.

Simply put .... a CSV maintains a set pressure with the pump on during a constant water usage such as a shower or irrigation.

 

[FliesLikeABrick]

OK.. but
Your picture shows a check valve next to your pressure gauge.
And .... All submersible pumps have an attached check valve .... otherwise the system would not hold pressure.

Simply put .... a CSV maintains a set pressure with the pump on during a constant water usage such as a shower or irrigation.

Thanks for the replies -- I agree that is what it looks like, and that brass flomatic body certainly appears to be a check valve -- however the arrow on it is actually pointing from the tank to the wall (towards the pump), and I assure you we have 3 points of use in the yard/outbuilding which draw from this system. I don't know what to make of this except that the check valve must be closer to the pump, and that someone must have torn the gate out of this valve in the pictures to just use it as a F-F NPT fitting.
I agree it doesn't make sense and I don't have another explanation currently. There definitely is not another pressure tank on the property, which is the only other option I thought worth mention since the pictures can't show that

I'm all ears if anyone has another suggestion for why the brass Flomatic valve is there, but backwards (and permitting flow both directions). It looks likely to be a Flomatic #4031 or something very similar

edit: and yes this indeed is a submersible pump (no CSV), to clarify for anyone else reading