Well plumbing Device?

WinterDeere · Oct 21, 2022

Chanceywd said:
I've seen that around here in central ny. Years ago an elderly woman called me when having trouble like that. She had called a well driller about it and they told her she needed a new pump. I wasn't there anytime at all and see the way it acted. I took the switch off and cleaned the nipple out, but sometimes it is built up in the switch diaphragm too. I have taken the 6 or so screws out and cleaned them too.

Yeah, I remember doing that in an emergency, one weekend evening when I didn't want to go find a 24-hour Lowes Depot. You can definitely get them working again in a pinch, if you're careful.

But the older I get, the more I worry about what I'm leaving behind for my family to deal with, when I'm gone. So, when it comes to old home mechanicals that I know will probably act up again in the future, I just make it a habit to replace with fresh, especially when it's as cheap as this hardware. I cleaned mine to solve the immediate emergency, but picked up a replacement later that week, and replaced it the following weekend.

newbury · Oct 21, 2022

WinterDeere said:
But the older I get, the more I worry about what I'm leaving behind for my family to deal with, when I'm gone. So, when it comes to old home mechanicals that I know will probably act up again in the future, I just make it a habit to replace with fresh, especially when it's as cheap as this hardware.

Good advice for all of us.

LouNY · Oct 21, 2022

I may be a bit different but when something goes out I tend to buy two, one to install and one to go on the shelve.
I do the oil burner repairs for mine and the farms, I have enough spares to rebuild two burner control units. Usually I'll have
4-5 sets of ignitors and various nozzles on the shelve, including one complete burner and nozzle assembly to fit my boiler. A few ignition transformers, 24V power supplies ect..
Plumbing wise I always have several nipples and elbows of various sizes, a few pressure gauges, two water pump pressure switches. (I have two wells a shallow dug well and a drilled well both have submersible pumps in them).
A couple of sticks of copper tubing, Some PEX and even some PexAlPex for boiler lines, several boxes of fittings for copper and PEX.
90% of the time when something fails it's at night or during a storm.
It's a 45 minute drive to the nearest Lowes or similar stores.

ruffdog · Oct 21, 2022

Looking at the age of the pressure tank, it may need to be replaced or at least check the pressure. When was the last time the pressure was checked?

ROUSTABOUT · Oct 21, 2022

Whew, submersible pumps good. Them old foot valve pumps bad. You can work on one all day, finally starts working, have no idea what you did that fixed it. I don't miss those one bit. Air charge, bladders, etc... I helped dad pull one a few weeks ago. It was submersible. We have three 36" wells, with a high-low water switch so it will switch the well it's using. One of the switches had gilflirted. Fixed and put back in. We had the loader with forks up and slid pipe over forks to not kink it. The Yorkie girl was overseeing the project as site manager.

Valveman · Oct 28, 2022

Glad you got the pressure relief valve fixed. You already have a brass 1/4" nipple going to the pressure switch, which usually does not clog like galvanized nipples. However, it is possible. It might also be the overload in the motor tripping. These are auto-resetting overloads and they usually cool down in a minute or so and it seems like the water just magically comes back on. If this is the case you have cycled the pump on and off too many times, which is what destroys pumps, tank bladders, check valves, pressure switches, and just about everything else in a water system. If the tank needs replacing it is time to upgrade to a constant pressure system using a Cycle Stop Valve which will solve all those problems, and can use a much smaller, less expensive tank.