About To Drill Well - Have Some Questions

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

The first big difference is that my well pump simply fills a 300 gallon non pressurized holding tank in the pump house. Then that water gravity feeds to a pressure pump that feeds the house.

I have been reading about this kind of setup, and it makes good sense to me. I will likely convert to this in the next couple of years.

 

[Wakey]

The constant pressure pump is great . I do irrigation systems for homes . When someone has one , they can shower while the irrigation is running and there is no difference in flow or pressure .

I need to run irrigation for about an acre, perhaps just under. What kind of specs should I be looking for? 2,700 SF home, 4 beds but sparsely used except holidays.

 

[Pumpmd]

I have been reading about this kind of setup, and it makes good sense to me. I will likely convert to this in the next couple of years.

If you don't want to mess with the gravity feed, just stick you 1/2hp whatever size gpm pump for your needs inside the storage tank and be done with it. These systems usually get used with low producing wells, even under a 1gpm where you would have a pumptec on your well pump feeding to your storage tank 24/7 to keep it full and use BW electrodes for the water level to tell the pump when it needs to fill the tank or it's full. Then your 1/2hp 10gpm pump inside the storage tank feeds over to a normal pressure tank setup (pitless adapter works great for coming out the storage tank and pex pipe if you need to make a shape bend for the pitless adapter and it's easier for the pump to lay down all the way to the bottom of the storage tank for maximum water use) and on out to whatever (irrigation and house can be used if the well can keep up for irrigation use). You can use a smaller generator to run the 1/2hp pump when power goes out.

 

[Valveman]

I need to run irrigation for about an acre, perhaps just under. What kind of specs should I be looking for? 2,700 SF home, 4 beds but sparsely used except holidays.

The house will only need about 5 GPM. Design the pump around the amount needed for irrigation, and add 5 GPM for the house. Constant pressure systems like the Cycle Stop Valve can run any one thing or all of them at the same time, but you have to start with a large enough pump to supply the total GPM needed.

 

[Wakey]

The house will only need about 5 GPM. Design the pump around the amount needed for irrigation, and add 5 GPM for the house. Constant pressure systems like the Cycle Stop Valve can run any one thing or all of them at the same time, but you have to start with a large enough pump to supply the total GPM needed.

Thank you. I'll find out what will be needed irrigation wise, shortly. I've learned a good deal from this thread, thanks to all that contributed.

 

[Pumpmd]

Size your pump right first like Valveman said. What you have to do on a traditional system is design your sprinkler system to hold steady pressure at 50psi or more (where your not cycling by adjusting your pressure switch) and you will have pressure for the house when you eliminate your friction loss going to the house and inside the house with large enough pipe. I have never needed a CSV or a constant pressure pump on a house with irrigation when the plumber does his job right. When you have a sprinkler guy that knows what he is doing and works with the pump installer, you will find out how useless a constant pressure system is on Residential and Light Commercial pump systems.

I can show people here in my area with their own system by opening their frost free yard hydrant where it won't cycle the pump but keeps the pressure up and then run water in their house at the same time. Run as many as it takes to finally see a loss in pressure.

Design/Install/Maintenance, do all these right on a traditional system and you will see how long pumps are suppose to last. WellXtrol tanks over the years have shown how they can do it without maintenance. Longest life on a pump comes from a traditional system, so ask yourself this "What's the longest life you have seen on a submersible pump that has ran Continuous Duty with few on/off".

After you do that, ask yourself "What's the longest life you have seen that uses a Dole Valve the same way"

 

[PILOON]

My client base was about 70 and all had pumps, with 1/2 drawing from lake and rest from wells.
Only one client needed to replace a pump and that was because his well went dry.
I would guess 90% of the pumps were between 20 and 35 years old.
The control boxes and pressure switches were the most common faults. Newer controls use solid state relays which are far superior to the old style.
More common problem was the pressure tanks, with bladder type often failing at 12 years or so. (guess that bladder can only take so much flexing)
Next often problem was simple crap plugging the small line at the pressure control switch, but that is a cheap easy fix. (like $25,00 part)

All that to say that pumps are very well engineered products that rarely fail.
OK, some will fail due to sand injection (worn vanes) but all in all they are very well constructed and have an exceptional life.
(Of interest just about every pump used the same Franklin power head )

PS
You know if a bladder tank or pressure switch has gone faulty if the pump surges on/off whenever you open a facet or flush a toilet.
A typical setting is for the cut in to be 3-4 PSI below the tank or bladder air pressure.

 

[Reload5]

Here's my latest quote for a well w/ constant pressure if it helps... >500+ feet down in Central Texas region...

 

[Pumpmd]

My client base was about 70 and all had pumps, with 1/2 drawing from lake and rest from wells.
Only one client needed to replace a pump and that was because his well went dry.
I would guess 90% of the pumps were between 20 and 35 years old.
The control boxes and pressure switches were the most common faults. Newer controls use solid state relays which are far superior to the old style.
More common problem was the pressure tanks, with bladder type often failing at 12 years or so. (guess that bladder can only take so much flexing)
Next often problem was simple crap plugging the small line at the pressure control switch, but that is a cheap easy fix. (like $25,00 part)

All that to say that pumps are very well engineered products that rarely fail.
OK, some will fail due to sand injection (worn vanes) but all in all they are very well constructed and have an exceptional life.
(Of interest just about every pump used the same Franklin power head )

PS
You know if a bladder tank or pressure switch has gone faulty if the pump surges on/off whenever you open a facet or flush a toilet.
A typical setting is for the cut in to be 3-4 PSI below the tank or bladder air pressure.

Would you say 99% of the time you had to change control boxes/components,pressure switches, and bladder tanks because maintenance wasn't done to the tank until it lost all its precharge? Bladder tanks can last a long too but you got to maintain them with air, they are not like a WellXtrol diaphragm tank.

I don't like the blue relay because you can't open them up to see the contact points and not just one blue relay can work a pump up to a 5hp pump, where the old style could.

Short cycling and rapid cycling are the two bad ones. The only cycling you want is Normal Cycling and good luck on trying to burn up a pump,control box components, and contact points on a pressure switch in short time.

Most people throw away good pressure switches all the time just because their not making good contact from a bug/insect or your tank lost it's air and burnt the points good enough to not make contact. If you have enough meat(light duty pressure switch has Alloy Points) they can be filed with a fine threaded point file to make them like new again.

Do Not file the contact points on a heavy duty pressure switch because they are made out of Silver.

 

[Valveman]

I have never needed a CSV or a constant pressure pump on a house with irrigation when the plumber does his job right. When you have a sprinkler guy that knows what he is doing and works with the pump installer, you will find out how useless a constant pressure system is on Residential and Light Commercial pump systems.

It is impossible to match every sprinkler zone to the pump. A good irrigator will know this and will use a CSV so they can match the irrigation to the yard, not the pump. "The ones that didn't usually ended up with a burned up pump before too long." Irrigators like CSV's because they don't make their living selling pumps like pump guys do.

I'm a licensed irrigator in Texas, designing to the pump on well systems was always the goal but proper hydrozoning almost never made it possible. Any system I put on a well got a shiny new Cycle Stop Valve installed as well. I've seen irrigation systems on wells that short-cycled the pump constantly (not mine) and the first thing I would suggest was adding a Cycle Stop. Sometimes they'd agree, other times not. The ones that didn't usually ended up with a burned up pump before too long. The ones that did had already replaced a pump or two and knew I was being honest.