StapleIma
Member
I need some plumbing/well advice for a situation that I’m pretty sure no one has seen before. Sorry this is long, but thank you for reading an trying to help.
I’ve contacted a few plumbers and well companies and once I describe it, they say they won’t touch it.
I purchased a property with a shared artisan gravity feed well system. The well is on my property and was installed in 1955. It is a 2.5 inch well pipe. The water flows out the top and does a 180 into a pipe that goes back into the ground (see photo). Another 70 year old pipe (as far as we know) goes downhill to the last house on the system and into the basement where it flows and fills a 150 gallon tank that is hooked to a jet pump and supplies water to the house. When the tank is full a flapper closes the valve that dumps the gravity feed water into the tank. The water then backs up in the pipe to the next house towards the well and the same thing happens. Finally, if both lower house tanks are full, it will fill the tank in my basement which is 30 feet from the well. If at anytime the houses downhill need water (tank level drops due to house pump kicking on), their valve opens and the water flows down and tops off their tank.
The system used to provide water to 5 houses this way, but two have drilled wells and gone off the system.
There is no overflow to the well. What I expect happens is when no one is using water the water backs up into the pipe until it air locks and stops the flow at the well head. Then as soon as one house needs water, the tank valve opens and the gravity start feeding the water in the pipe to the tank. (There is a AAV that breaks the air lock to allow flow when the water level drops but more on that later).
This has worked fine for 70 years until the other day when our house (nearest to the well, but last to fill) ran out of water. This makes sense that it would run out first. I measured and the water was coming in at only 1 gallon per 8 minutes. It was just a trickle. While we never measured before everyone knows it was not that slow.
When I moved in the previous owner told me that the other previous owns told her to never mess with this sideways 1.5 inch air admittance valve as that’s key to the system.
With no plumber willing to touch it, as they didn’t want to knock 3 houses out of water, I went ahead and unscrewed it. There was a clear air suck sound when I did that and I could see the water flowing down through the pipe (and it was much more than 1 gallon every 8 minutes).
I sorta cleaned the valve and screwed it back in and checked and the flow had increased to 1 gallon every 3 minutes, a huge improvement. Obviously something was wrong with this and I suspect it was not allowing air into the system. Normally if I put my ear up to it when the system is running I can hear a trickle of water.
So I figured this 20+ year old AAV was tired and got a new one. I screwed it in and within a few hours I was back to my trickle. I took it out and compared it to the new one by using a scientific method I call “sucking on the back of it” to see how hard it was to get air through it. The old one allowed air much easier than the new one. I put the old one back in and things returned to the 1 gallon per 3 minutes and I could hear the trickle again.
I suspect the new one was just too stiff and it requires too much negative pressure to allow air in. The well doesn’t generate enough to allow enough air in for gravity to take over and it slows the flow. I also suspect this old one might have been modified so the spring is not as stiff and lets air in more easily, that is just a gut feeling with how it was taped up.
From what I have discovered I need an open value at the head, that allows air to flow in to get behind the falling water so it can flow as fast as it can via gravity. However it needs to close from the water pressure when all tanks are full and the water backs up into the well head to create the air lock that stops the flow up from the aquifer.
Options
1) Keep using this 20 year old modified AAV and hope it was just a fluke that the rubber check diaphragm dried up or something and didn’t allow air in.
2) Try and take apart a new AAV and release the tension on spring so it open at a much lower pressure and use it the same way? Do they make adjustable press AAVs? Should I put an elbow in and mount the AAV vertically? I am also in CNY where is freezes so I don’t want to separate this two far from the never frozen artisan water that flows through system.
3) OR (here is where I am hoping someone knows of something) is there some other 1.5” NPT (or compatible) type valve I can use that when the system is flowing and filling a tank provides full airflow to get behind that water so it can fall and let gravity do its thing, yet when the water backs up, that water will close the value?
There are a number of different check valves and I am just not familiar with them to know which one would be best (if this would work at all). And if you have a link to the product that would be even more helpful.
I don’t need a 4th option of drilling a new well, I’m aware of that option. I would like to try and make this system continue to work.
I’ve contacted a few plumbers and well companies and once I describe it, they say they won’t touch it.
I purchased a property with a shared artisan gravity feed well system. The well is on my property and was installed in 1955. It is a 2.5 inch well pipe. The water flows out the top and does a 180 into a pipe that goes back into the ground (see photo). Another 70 year old pipe (as far as we know) goes downhill to the last house on the system and into the basement where it flows and fills a 150 gallon tank that is hooked to a jet pump and supplies water to the house. When the tank is full a flapper closes the valve that dumps the gravity feed water into the tank. The water then backs up in the pipe to the next house towards the well and the same thing happens. Finally, if both lower house tanks are full, it will fill the tank in my basement which is 30 feet from the well. If at anytime the houses downhill need water (tank level drops due to house pump kicking on), their valve opens and the water flows down and tops off their tank.
The system used to provide water to 5 houses this way, but two have drilled wells and gone off the system.
There is no overflow to the well. What I expect happens is when no one is using water the water backs up into the pipe until it air locks and stops the flow at the well head. Then as soon as one house needs water, the tank valve opens and the gravity start feeding the water in the pipe to the tank. (There is a AAV that breaks the air lock to allow flow when the water level drops but more on that later).
This has worked fine for 70 years until the other day when our house (nearest to the well, but last to fill) ran out of water. This makes sense that it would run out first. I measured and the water was coming in at only 1 gallon per 8 minutes. It was just a trickle. While we never measured before everyone knows it was not that slow.
When I moved in the previous owner told me that the other previous owns told her to never mess with this sideways 1.5 inch air admittance valve as that’s key to the system.
With no plumber willing to touch it, as they didn’t want to knock 3 houses out of water, I went ahead and unscrewed it. There was a clear air suck sound when I did that and I could see the water flowing down through the pipe (and it was much more than 1 gallon every 8 minutes).
I sorta cleaned the valve and screwed it back in and checked and the flow had increased to 1 gallon every 3 minutes, a huge improvement. Obviously something was wrong with this and I suspect it was not allowing air into the system. Normally if I put my ear up to it when the system is running I can hear a trickle of water.
So I figured this 20+ year old AAV was tired and got a new one. I screwed it in and within a few hours I was back to my trickle. I took it out and compared it to the new one by using a scientific method I call “sucking on the back of it” to see how hard it was to get air through it. The old one allowed air much easier than the new one. I put the old one back in and things returned to the 1 gallon per 3 minutes and I could hear the trickle again.
I suspect the new one was just too stiff and it requires too much negative pressure to allow air in. The well doesn’t generate enough to allow enough air in for gravity to take over and it slows the flow. I also suspect this old one might have been modified so the spring is not as stiff and lets air in more easily, that is just a gut feeling with how it was taped up.
From what I have discovered I need an open value at the head, that allows air to flow in to get behind the falling water so it can flow as fast as it can via gravity. However it needs to close from the water pressure when all tanks are full and the water backs up into the well head to create the air lock that stops the flow up from the aquifer.
Options
1) Keep using this 20 year old modified AAV and hope it was just a fluke that the rubber check diaphragm dried up or something and didn’t allow air in.
2) Try and take apart a new AAV and release the tension on spring so it open at a much lower pressure and use it the same way? Do they make adjustable press AAVs? Should I put an elbow in and mount the AAV vertically? I am also in CNY where is freezes so I don’t want to separate this two far from the never frozen artisan water that flows through system.
3) OR (here is where I am hoping someone knows of something) is there some other 1.5” NPT (or compatible) type valve I can use that when the system is flowing and filling a tank provides full airflow to get behind that water so it can fall and let gravity do its thing, yet when the water backs up, that water will close the value?
There are a number of different check valves and I am just not familiar with them to know which one would be best (if this would work at all). And if you have a link to the product that would be even more helpful.
I don’t need a 4th option of drilling a new well, I’m aware of that option. I would like to try and make this system continue to work.
