Well control psi setting?

[Jonathan S.]

Arrived at friend’s vacation house yesterday afternoon.
Water working normally as always.
My guest even took a long shower (picked up him from long red-eye flight from SEA), so definitely not just fooled by a little leftover water pressure after a line cut-off or something.

Went out for the pre-ESAW festivities.
Returned to the house, and now only a small trickle from any faucet.

Definitely not frozen pipes, since temps still above freezing.
Summer and early fall were very dry (e.g., mandatory water restrictions in my own town), but last few weeks have been very wet, so groundwater must be recharged now.
(Ski resorts reporting good recovery for snowmaking ponds.)

Circuit breakers all okay, nothing tripped.

Looked at electronic control panel for well pump.
Instructional manual didn’t seem to offer any clues.
And I’ve always been on city/town water, so zero knowledge of this.
Contacted friend – he didn’t know anything and has never experienced such a problem.
My guest’s background is originally in hydrology, but apparently home well control is not a standard part of curriculum.

Saw a psi readout going from 40 to 100 in 10-psi increments.
Set at 50, which manual says is the default.
Increased to 50, then 60.
Hmm, trickle was improving.

Maxed it out at 100, then everything back to normal last night and still this morning.

Maybe back it off to halfway in between before leaving Sunday morning for AIARE IRC?

Any other thoughts?
Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[Bronco]

Is there a filter in the system?

[Jonathan S.]

Ummm, I dunno.
Will look more carefully tonight.
So the culprit might be a clogged filter?
And therefore increasing the pressure was compensating for that?

[billyk]

There must be a pressure sensor that feeds back to that control panel. Maybe it was stuck or borderline going out?

[flyman683]

Assuming it's not a filter or water softener clog issue:

Is the gage on a big tank? Possibly the tank is failing and not properly holding pressure, but most likely is the pressure switch that fills the system isn't working right.

[flyman683]

Also, don't leave it at 100psi, the pressure tank won't be set for anything near that. I'd go back to 60psi.

[Jonathan S.]

Okay, set it back to 60 last night.
Everything is still fine.
Here are pics of the control panel and everything nearby.
The analog gauge reading at the bottom closely tracks the electonic control setting.

[zlatham]

If the set pressure holds overnight then it's unlikely the tank is the problem. You may want to consider calling the pump installer to see where the pump is set at, depth wise. It may be that the system pressurizes fine but the pump is not set low enough and or draws the water level inside the casing below the pump intake, thus only providing a small flow rate. Grundfos is the pump manufacturer, not the installer. Pressure sensor is inline on left side of tank. Check it with physical pressure on inline gauge, sounds like they are similar.

[zlatham]

50-60psi is the set point pressure range i have seen when observing domestic systems. My guess would be the bladders inside of most tanks are rated near 100 pounds.

[SkiBall]

Tell your guest not to take such long showers.

[Quadzilla]

Checking filters if any, iron breakers et et is a first start. My guess is that the guest that took a long shower drew down the well beyond where the pump head is and ran out of water. The well started working again when the well recharged itself when there was water down there for the pump to pickup again. Anyway, there isn't a sea of water down there but wells are localized and in the days of drought the water levels are dropping and maybe drop below of where the depth of the well is. And there is a recharging and the well will pull in water from the surroundings.

Bottomline, manage water when on a well especially a well that has been in service for a long time. OR, spend thousands dropping the well deeper.

[Garth Bimble]

The red light next to the little guy with the big wrench isn't on, that's probably a good thing.

That's all I've got.

[rangerjake]

Water tables are also very low right now for small municipal water systems and private wells. I don't think that is your problem, but wells are going dry round these parts, and I know that happened a few places in Fryeburg this summer (with help from Nestle pumping out a fuck ton from the local aquifer for Poland Spring).