Our well pump has been running dry intermittently after heavy water use (e.g. running the lawn sprinkler system).

The pump will run, but pressure will drop to 10psi and mostly air will come out.

I then turn off the breaker to the pump, let it sit for 20 minutes, turn it back on and we have pressure again. until the next heavy water use.

The pump is about 10 years old. I don't know what size. it is submersible. about 150ft deep I think.

The pressure tank is original from 1984. the switch appears to be working fine - on at 40psi, off at 60.

So here's my questions:

1. is this a matter of lowering the pump deeper into the well?? if so, what should that cost?

2. I got a quote from a Well contractor for $4k to replace the pump and pressure tank. He quoted a 1.5hp Red Jacket pump, Wellmate 23 tank, and 210ft of 12/3 wire. includes $900 of labor. Is this a reasonable quote??

3. I'd like to get more than 60psi -- if I go with the 1.5hp will I get 65-70 psi? Can I go even bigger?

4. What's the "best" well pump brand? Is RedJacket good? I assume that as with sump pumps there is a wide variety of quality for about the same money.

thanks for your help!

 

You should not be irrigating from a drinking water well. Most people I know have two wells, one that is low volume, but high pressure and it is used for drinking water and the other is for irrigation, which is low pressure and high volume.

Sprinkler heads are designed for 30 psi, so you can see that lower pressure is is not unusual.

Normally, an irrigation well doesn't need a pressure tank because the system is balanced by zones and the number of heads on each zone. In my opinion, a well that can't produce at least 18gpm is not a very good irrigation well. That is six heads at 3GPM each which makes a nice zone.

Irrigation wells often cost much less than deep water drinking water wells. Even though they need a higher volume, they can often be shallower than drinking water wells since contamination is less of a concern. Irrigation wells can be as shallow as 10 feet -100 feet and when you are paying by the foot, that matters.

If you keep over-pumping a well, it can be ruined permanently. Better to ruin an irrigation well than a drinking water well. Brown grass is a drag, but being thirsty is a real calamity.

You may not think that this in answer to your questions, but really it is. If the existing well meets your house demands, then leave it alone and seek irrigation water elsewhere.

 

I double what Vey said. Irrigating from you drinking water well is a very bad idea.

Around here in central NC surface or shallow wells generally cannot supply enough volume for irrigation so they must also be deep wells. I'm not a fan of installing a second, deep irrigation well unless you can locate it very, very far away as they will both be drawing from the same water source. The story is very different on the coast and barrier islands where shallow surface water is readily available. There is is common to have a 20-40ft deep sand point well for irrigation and can work quite well. But being in Chicago I doubt you can get much from surface water.

 

I appreciate the advice. I'll look into what it would take for a dedicated irrigation well. everybody around here just ties into their regular well and puts in a backflow preventer. I guess that's the code here. i've never seen anyone with a separate sprinkler well.

in any case, given that I will either have to lower the pump or replace the whole system -- I would appreciate any guidance on the other questions I posed. I can get multiple bids but i'd rather have the objective advice from you good folks.

 

Look at your well head. If it's new enough there may be a data plate telling you how deep your well is and if you get really lucky they may have noted how deep they installed the pump. If you don't have a data plate or if it's unreadable you can often find out from your county's Health or Environmental Services Dept, whichever has jurisdiction over wells. With that you'll at least have some information about your current well.

Generally I don't think pumps are installed unduly high so I would not expect any great increase in capacity by lowering it. You might gain some but I doubt it will be worth the effort.

Another option to consider is making changes in your irrigation system. Simplest would be to have one zone run each night at 2 am, with only one zone watering each night. This would even out the demand on your well and give it time to recover. Another/additional option is to use low flow heads. You would have to run the zone longer to get the same amount of water but that would cut the surge demand on your well.

I'm saving the biggie for last. Stop irrigating! Your well is giving you plenty of warning signs that you are drawing too much water.

How large is your property? Code requires wells to be minimum distances away from septic tanks, leach fields, old wells, buildings and property lines which can leave you few options for locating a new well should your current one die. If you do not have enough land to locate a second drinking water well what is your plan B? Then consider the cost of drilling a new well and digging up the yard to run the power and water line. You've really got to think if irrigation is needed, especially since you are not in an arid region.

 

Yes, smaller zones and more of them might solve things for a while, but it makes me nervous to suggest that. Risking your only water well to keep the grass greener is a not a smart bet to make.