Water Well 101......A few questions from a water well newbie

[Valveman]

Egon, well said.
All to say that you don't want leaky valves or faulty toilet valves.
If U are not drawing any water the system should never re cycle.

You are correct Piloon. And this is true no matter how large or how small a pressure tank you have.

 

[Valveman]

Average life is 8 years ???
Heck mine is over 24 and other than the pressure tank rupturing* (replaced with fiberglass one ) and the occasional pressure switch I'm still going strong.

*The metal tank made rust which abated the bladder and caused leaks and the glass tank cured that problem. (so far, I think. Makes sense)

I'll add that the pressure switch is a routine maintenance item as the contact points do need occasional polishing as they do get pitted.
Either polish or replace from time to time. (LOL, I do have a spare set on hand)
Think older cars and replacement of the distributer points as well as sand blasting the spark plugs.

It is possible that the tank rusted first which caused it to fail, but not very likely. Usually the bladder fails first from going up and down for each pump cycle until the bladder breaks like when bending a piece of wire back and forth over and over. Then the water gets into the air chamber, which isn't coated for water, and rust out the tank wall. Fiberglass tanks won't rust, but the bladder breaks in the same exact way.

"Polishing" pressure switch points is not a routine maintenance issue, and actually should never be done. The only reason for pitting of the points is from arcing when the points open or close. If the pump cycles too much the points arc too much and the contacts do not last. The outside layer of the points is a finely polished silver, and should never be filed off. It will just make the arcing worse and can make one side of the points touch before the other, which isn't good. Different from distributor points that spark all the time, the only time pressure switch points spark is when the pump is cycling. No cycling, no pitted points. The pressure switch points pitting is just the first sign you are cycling the pump to death. Sure 1 HP and smaller pumps can tolerate up to 300 cycles per day and still last a long time, but it should be intuitive that less cycling will still make the pump last longer.

When you see a bad pressure switch, check valve, start cap, or tank bladder, you should be doing something to stop the cycling that caused the failure, because your pump is taking even more abuse. You just can't see the pump or know how much abuse it is getting until it fails and you pull it up to have a look. But then it is too late.

 

[PILOON]

I opened up my old pressure tank being the curious type I am.
The inside was bare metal and fairly rusty with rust stains/flakes adhering to the bladder.
Bladder itself is a rather rugged polyurethane 'bag' that can endure much use/abuse but I guess it has limits.
Mine went out at probably 18 years of daily usage.
I'd guess that in the 24 years I did replace the pressure switch at least twice.

My water source is the lake and my line is 120 ft long and has a heater in it as it could not be buried deep due to rock formations.
I take lake water as it is all spring fed and annually tests pure. (we take 20 samples/yr) the pump is 'parked' over a spring and lives in a rack
to keep it in a close to vertical position.

Most pump installations that I have seen/serviced live in areas that are not the best to be in, (damp basement corner, outside 'shack', earthen cellars etc)

Gee, had one client that must have had over 12 old pressure switches lying around he had so much troubles., but then he had everything against him.
So wet/damp that U wore boots, a surface well that went dry on occasion 2'nd well 400 ft deep that also ran dry on occasion. Also he blew pumps from time to time.
Well I solved his problems permanently.
Trenched 4 ft deep and placed an artesian pump in the lake at a depth of 9/10 ft.(being the thermocline level) and he has enjoyed the last 12 years trouble free.
As mentioned earlier this lake is all spring fed and at the head of the watershed.