New pump, failing well or bad pressure switch ? HELP !

[Willowanders]

Hello folks. Thank you kindly for reading. So here is my woes.
We moved to norther British Columbia in May of this year. Well is 90 ft. We had no water issues other than a minute or so for pressure tank to kick in. Pressure switch was a 20/40 and we wanted to upgrade to 40/60. Plumber came by and said our tank was in good shape and it was a small job to increase pressure. We had plumber do the job following week. When they were installing new switch they incorrectly wired it twice and shorted the switch and flipped my breaker, the third try they bypassed the pressure switch. I know nothing about this and trusted them. Our water poured out black sludge for a day or two, then went clear but has a film now. We did some canning and jars were covered in a light yellow dust/film. It has been 2 week and I have approx 2psi when we use water now. It was fine before we had any work done so I am very frustrated. We contacted same plumber last week and demanded they check their work and see what is going on. We are very stressed as we have 35 chickens, dogs, cats and a huge garden that need water. The plumber today checked the switch says gauge and switch are working, checked the well, and says the well level was low sitting at approx 12-14 feet in this 90 foot well. He said to turn our well pump off to let it refill, and turn it on tomorrow to gauge pressure, if not replace pump or the well is failing. Does anyone have any experience, words of wisdom or idea what the heck's going on. I wish we had never touched the pressure switch as it was working good enough two weeks ago and now our lives are turned upside down.

 

[RS]

You need a different plumber! You could have increased the pressure yourself with a 3/8 nut driver, any pressure control switch I have ever had is adjustable. But, maybe your existing pump is not capable of developing 60 psi? If I had come to help you I would of held the switch down and let the pump run, if it increased smoothly to 65 psi then I would have set the switch to 35-55, and adjusted the air in the tank accordingly. It sounds like things are really screwed up now, good luck

 

[Willowanders]

This plumber was an idiot for sure. I will update if anything changes.

 

[arctic bill]

it is a 5 minute job to change the pressure setting

 

[Valveman]

As was said there was no need to replace the switch. Simply tightening the large adjustment screw 6-7 rounds would have made a 40/60 switch out of the 20/40. I am afraid the bypassing of the pressure switch blew something out down the well. This would stir up the crud and cause you to only have 2 PSI when using water. And the pump probably won't shut off, making you think the well is dry.

 

[RS]

Is it a submersible pump?

 

[Willowanders]

Is it a submersible pump?

yes submersible pump

 

[Willowanders]

As was said there was no need to replace the switch. Simply tightening the large adjustment screw 6-7 rounds would have made a 40/60 switch out of the 20/40. I am afraid the bypassing of the pressure switch blew something out down the well. This would stir up the crud and cause you to only have 2 PSI when using water. And the pump probably won't shut off, making you think the well is dry.

This is what we are thinking as well.

 

[RS]

Submersible pumps will develop a lot of pressure, depending on the pump, and your water table is pretty high. Unfortunately Valveman is probably correct, you must have a bad leak in the well. Take the cover off the well and listen, the pump should be a faint humming noise, but a large water leak will be obvious.

 

[Willowanders]

we followed plumbers instruction yesterday to turn off pump and let well refill and turn on today. Same issue this morning of no pressure. No crud came out of taps though. What I do not understand is that our well was fine 2 weeks ago and was showing no sign of being low water. We had semi decent pressure at 20/40 psi that was consistent with no waning or hiccups until this work was done. His well depth test yesterday says that we had 12 feet of water in well. I am not sure if that is ok or not good but he said that is low and suggested this ideas of letting well refill overnight. It just makes no sense that everything was fine 2 weeks ago. I regret trying to improve the system by getting a 40/60 switch since it has been chaos since.

 

[Willowanders]

Submersible pumps will develop a lot of pressure, depending on the pump, and your water table is pretty high. Unfortunately Valveman is probably correct, you must have a bad leak in the well. Take the cover off the well and listen, the pump should be a faint humming noise, but a large water leak will be obvious.

does a bad leak in well mean that the well will have to be replaced ?

 

[Valveman]

does a bad leak in well mean that the well will have to be replaced ?

Not the well. Just the small pipe that goes down to the pump. After letting it sit with the breaker off for 20-30 minutes, will it build up to 60 and shut off?

 

[Willowanders]

Not the well. Just the small pipe that goes down to the pump. After letting it sit with the breaker off for 20-30 minutes, will it build up to 60 and shut off?

No sadly. It sits between 2 and 4 psi.

 

[Valveman]

Then you have a hole in the drop pipe and your well is not out of water. Most likely the pump got hot when the pressure switch was bypassed and melted the pipe right above the pump.