Why do pumps lose prime

This was very helpful and describes exactly what my problem is. One question tho. Could I forgo the foot valve and put in a check valve to save money? Frank experts recommend replacing the foot valve but indeed I've occasionally seen people limp along for years without pulling the well piping to replace the foot valve by instead installing a check valve at the pump.

In other words, your idea might work, but there is a reason that people use foot valves at the bottom end of well piping - the valve in that location is more reliable at preserving well prime. I have replaced the jet pump and pressure tank during the process. I checked for leaking toilets and piping leaks. The well suction line holds pressure now which was the origonal problem but now I can't get the jet pump to pressure up past 40 psi?

The pressure control switch cut outs on this system are 30 [pump on] and 50 psi [pump off] Any ideas would sure help! When a pump keeps running and we don't think that the problem is loss of water in the well itself, I suspect that during the prior well problem the pump itself was damaged - a bushing, bearing, or impeller; on occasion low voltage or bad pump motor will leave a pump running but weak.

However, a second possibility is a leak in well piping large enough that the pump just can't reach cut-off pressure. However if yours is a one-line jet pump, if there were a leak in the well piping or a bad foot valve, the system would not hold pressure when the pump was off.

Therefore my first guess is the more likely explanation. For a 2 line jet pump, once you have repaired the two cut lines you can usually do all of this quite easily right at the pump. The pump switch is set at The pump shuts off at 45 but when it drops to 25, it turns on but does not rise.

I have installed a new air tank broken bladder , pump switch, and pressure gauge. My plumber replaced all piping on the pull side of the pump including a new check valve and eliminated an elbow.

All ports on the pump are taped. House side seems secure. Is there something else I might try before I turn to the well-foot valve etc? Dick If the pump turns on at the proper time as yours does AND provided that the pump is actually delivering water, the we suspect the gauge may be stuck or defective or debris clogged; If the pump "turns on" but in fact no water is being delivered, there is a different problem to find and fix - a pump that is not operating, a well that has lost water level or flow rate, or a leak somewhere in the well piping.

Check first for dirt or debris clogging at the pump pressure control switch and gauge. What affects pump life?. The comment [above] from Sept 6, sounds extremely similar to our situation. Shallow well that is legally grandfathered to exist, but no professional plumber can legally service it.

Pump switch is set at and correctly shuts off at Anecdotally, it seems that if water is used soon after within the next hour or two , the pump will correctly cycle back to However, if the water is unused for an extended period overnight, say , the pressure runs down to 30 with water use and then the pump motor runs continuously and simply hovers at around The fix for this behavior is to kill power to the pump at the breaker.

Upon restart, the pump cycles right back up to 50 without issue. We'll check for dirt and debris at the pump pressure control switch and gauge. After that, do you have any other advice for our situation or should we turn our attention to the foot valve and pipe leaks. Thanks for any advice you can provide. Dan the suggestions right on this page are a good place to start, beginning with check for a bad foot valve.

Most often when a well and pump are capable of delivering good water pressure and flow, but prime is lost when the well sits unused, there is either a bad foot valve or some one line jet pumps use a check valve right on the pump , or there is a leak in the well piping.

I have an almost identical problem as Dan If I don't have water flowing for a couple of hours the pressure stays constant even for days but just cycling the pump doesn't get it to work. I have to open up the pump prime fill nut a slight bit to let the air excape then tighten it and turn on the pump, then repeat this times until enough air has been purged out to get water to flow.

There is a check valve in the pipe on the suction side of the pump and I've tried to test for air getting in at one of the hose clamps.

I don't understand how air can be getting into the system at the foot valve Any help with how to test for air being pulled into the line would be greatly appreciated. David, I agree that having to keep water running and thus the pump running is most likely avoiding loss of prime.

What's odd is that the pressure stays constant, but you're having to purge air to get water flowing again. I don't think air is likely to be entering at a foot valve as it's under-water unless water level in your well drops completely below the valve ; Air can leak into or water out of plastic well piping at connectors secured with hose clamps, even though such leaks may not be immediately obvious.

At a shallow well served by a one-line jet pump I installed a water filter that used a clear plastic canister. When the pump would run I could see air bubbles appearing inside the filter canister. Experimentally I added a second hose clamp at each of the above-ground well piping connectors that I could easily access. One of them turned out to be the culprit. As soon as I made a better connection there the air bubbles stopped.

This problem is a reason that well pipe fitters don't like to re-use plastic pipe connectors elbows, unions etc that have been disassembled. Every time we heat-up the plastic pipe to re-insert the connecting fitting we are stretching the plastic slightly. The connection may be leaky but look fine. So if there is enough slack to do so often not we will cut off the previously-used end of well piping, re-heat the pipe, then insert a new connector, when restoring or repairing plastic well pipes.

From your description it sounds as if you have a one line jet pump. On a one line jet pump the air-leak in to the system can be at any connector above water, as when the pump is running it is "sucking" on the well pipe between the pump and well bottom. On a two-line jet pump the air leak is more likely to be discovered on the suction line, as the pressure line, sending water down into the well and then back up through the venturi-operated water pick-up is under pressure - a leak in the "down" line will squirt water out, not draw air in, when the pump is running.

You've given me what I hope is a good idea I think the reason the system pressure doesn't drop is that the check valve near the pump inlet is keeping water under pressure from getting back through the pump and back to the well, so the air leak is probably on the well side of the check valve I wondered if the check valve brass casting might be porous and allowing air in. I will try to improve the hose clamp seal there are two clamps at each hose connection and report back the results.

I have once or twice found a cast-brass valve or check valve with a defect or leak, others of course can be cracked by mis-handling or freezing. And we found one with a "hidden" pinhole leak in the casting of a new check valve. Sorry about spinning your head makes me think of those horrible horror movies.

I would welcome any suggestions about how to make our information more clear, easy to find, navigable. Typically the well repair company will observe loss of prime, replace the above-ground at-pump check valve, and if prime is still lost they'll next pull the well piping and replace the foot valve.

If problems persist people start looking for a leak in the well piping anywhere along its route, tackling the more accessible areas first of course. What I've been thinking about without the thrill of a perfect solution is how one can tell the difference between a leaky check valve at the pump above ground and a leaky foot valve or a leak in well piping.

A leak in well piping sometimes can be heard if it's in the well not if it's in the buried segment , and sometimes gives itself away by the admission of air or debris into the water supply.

But not necessarily. Where it's troublesome to inspect the well piping entirely, which is usually the case, I might try this:. For example, re-using ABS water pipes and elbows can leave clandestine air leaks into the piping at those joints. I've spotted this problem by looking at the clear plastic surrounding a water filter installed at the well pump. When I see air bubbles entering the filter I know there is an air source somewhere.

I've on occasion fixed the problem by tightening hose clamps on the pipe joints and by adding a second hose clamp on either side of the joint. Plumbers don't like to re-use these connections for just this problem, but since generally we don't have lots of slack in well piping that re-use is common. I may have confused you by bringing up my well pump installation but it serves only to supply water to the storage tank and my problems arise from that part of my system.

The well merely fills the tank near the house and works flawlessly. Its foot valve is only 7 feet down and is unobstructed. Thus the storage tank and the new pressure tank located together are really the source of my water since I may just as well have a water truck come to my piece of land and pump water into the large ga. So she puts up with having to flip the breaker whenever we need running water in the house. I have a line running to the garden directly from the well so in that regard we're OK but it's not filtered and is not as pressurized as water out of the tank near the house.

OK so if we are confident that there is no hidden well piping leak which I grant as a temporary assumption we're left with returning to the question of accurate problem diagnosis. We are talking about intermittent well pump cycling on when you don't expect it to, and we assumed a problem with a check valve or piping because you were sure that no water was being draw from the system on the "house" side of the pump and tank.

Alternatively if the well pump was left running for a long time it would be no surprise if it's impeller assembly was damaged. If that occurred the pump would run but not deliver water at proper pressure.

I have two pumps, but it's not the well pump we're discussing but the one next to the storage tank. The former is far away from the latter and transports water to the storage tank with its own, separate system, which is where I have the problem.

I'd double check that you can successfully fully turn off water to your building. Then watch the pump for intermittent cycling. If it cycles on there's a leak to be found. Reader Question : I have found your web site to be very good and straight forward on problems and solutions but haven't found a solution to my problem yet. Let me explain our problem. We have a ranch in south Texas that has two storage tanks about gals each that feed a single pump that supplies water to the house.

The storage tanks and the pump are at about the same elevation as the house but the 2" line runs down through a valley that is roughly 75' below the house. The pump setup is a single pump with two pressure tanks about the size of a swimming pool filter located on the 2" discharge line via a cross and then the 2" line runs to the house.

The pressure regulator on the pump is the same one as shown on your web site. The problem is during the day the system works just fine but every morning when we get up there is zero water at the house. Don't really understand why this is happening.

When you open the valve at the house that should relieve the pressure on the line unless the head pressure is to great to allow the pump to come on?

This same system has worked great in the past but has developed this problem. We have changed the regulator out a couple of times thinking that was the problem but it wasn't. I just today changed the set pressure so the pump to where it comes on around 48 psi and shuts off at 60 psi. If you have any ideas I sure would like to know. When you changed the pressure control switch, did you check for evidence of debris in the water supply that might have clogged the switch sensor port or the tube that conducts the water pressure to the bottom of the pressure switch?

When you go down to the pump in the AM when there is no water pressure at the house, if you "tap" on the switch box itself will that turn on the pump? There was nothing in the line looked clean. Haven't tried tapping on the switch to see if that would kick the pump on. Always just manually close contacts. If this is an internal bladder tank, its possible that the bladder is burst and sticking to itself or not letting water in the tank or out of it. OTOH if you see tank pressure varying then I'm wrong in that guess.

IF the gauge is on the tank that'd tell us something. I should have added "due to lost prime" - Ed. A complete separate pump system is filling the storage tanks. I can't answer the question about pressure on the pressure tanks because we don't have a gauge on them. So all I have to do to test the pressure tanks is close the block valve and use the hose bib to bleed water of the pressure tanks and they seen to have plenty of pressure.

If that makes sense to you. Yes the bleed-to-confirm water pressure makes sense. IF you are getting water out of the tanks they're not blocked. Besides for large tanks such as yours there would not be an internal bladder design. But you might encounter such a problem if you had a pump and bladder type pressure tank at the house end of the system.

I will let you know if raising the pressure has any effect on the problem. If the water pressure is off at the house the ranch foreman will check the gage to see if there is pressure and then he is going to open the hose bib and see if the pump comes on then. I believe we have determined the problem or in this case a couple of problems. What we found was the pump case actually had a small crack that during periods of none use overnight would allow the pump case to drain and then the pump would lose prime.

The system has a sensor on the pump to shutoff the pump in case the pump looses prime so that was why the pump would appear not to start only after sitting overnight. Also the pressure gage was faulty and would not read less than 41 lbs, oddly enough that was the pressure where the pump should have started. So all those problems together was making it appear to be something else and that kept us looking in the wrong places.

We can sleep tonight :- and again thanks for helping me try to figure out the problem and yes we did learn something. I'm was also confused that you said you opened a valve at the storage tanks and had plenty of water, BUT depending on the tank and piping arrangement, that might be true at those storage tanks even when water pressure in the tanks was not sufficient to push water uphill to the point of use.

On by mod - why do we lose prime except when we keep water running? Julian Spencer, The observation that if you run water often-enough you don't lose prime suggests that there is a leak back into the water storage cistern or tank or a leak out of piping between tank and point of use; In contrast, I also considered an air leak at the pump itself, but in that case I don't think running it at frequent intervals would avoid the prime-loss problem.

Post a sketch for me if you can - use the Add Image button to add a. Is the pump above the point of connection of piping to the water storage tank? I have diligently read all the questions, comments and your very helpful solutions but I am still struggling.

My water comes from a ltr depository which due to my position has to be filled by tanker. I have installed a new surface pump to send water to the house. The pump has worked perfectly for a week but has now started to lose prime. First time was yesterday and lost prime overnight. This morning no water and prime has gone in the space of one hour. I have an inspection pipe extension of the pipe from the tank which has a tap fitted and comes above the level of the tank and the pump.

The water level is remaining at the level of the pump the water level in the tank is below the level of the pump so I am thinking the foot valve is ok.

As far as I can see and feel there are no water leaks. The pump keeps prime providing we turn on a tap at regular intervals but this is hardly a solution. All suggestions, comments and help will be appreciated. Teri, Tthe bottom line is it sounds as if the pump is running dry, overheating and is damaged.

When your new pump also isn't working I suspect that either it wasn't correctly primed, or there's a leaky foot valve or leak in the well piping. More diagnostic articles and instructions on how to prime a well poump are in the Index to Related Articles found about on this page. A leak somewhere in water lines Failure of check valves Air gaps in intake pipes Drawdown from hose or tap left running. During a power outage, household members may drain all of the water out of the plumbing lines.

This will also cause the pump to lose its prime. Water and electricity don't mix. Your well pump operates with high voltage, so shut off the breaker to your pump before adding water to the system.

Use insulated tools to remove the fill valve plug from your well pump. Every pump system has a pressure switch. The switch is covered by a small black or gray box. Most pressure switch boxes are watertight, but you should be especially careful not to spill water on or near your pressure switch box.

Cover the pressure switch with plastic if it's located very close to the fill valve, but remove the plastic protection before you restart the pump. All of your plumbing system's lines must be shut tight to maintain pressure when priming the pump. If a tap is left open during priming, the water you add to the pump will just flow out of the system. Since there may be a small amount of water in the pump when you open the fill valve, it may spurt on you or your pressure switch.

Before priming the pump, open a tap for a moment to let some of the water out of the lines. Close the tap before you prime the pump. Prime your pump with the cleanest water you can find.

In an emergency, you may have to use pond or stream water, but the water may contain sediments that could harm the pump. It's wise to keep a few gallons of clean water on hand strictly for priming purposes. Purchase water at the store or ask a neighbor for potable water if possible. Use water from your toilet tanks or water heater let water cool before priming if they still contain water. Fill valves on pumps are notoriously small. Use a funnel to add water to the pump.