Hie everyone. I have a submersible pump with a fl 7 composite bladder tank. The pump turns on at 40 and off at 60. Every time I flush the toilet, the pump turns on. Is this normal? I thought that the tank should hold more that 1 toilets worth of water. I don't know how much the toilet holds, house was built in 1991. Thanks in advance for the help. mcdonnep
Your toilet is probably 5 gallons per flush.
If withdrawing 5 gallons from your bladder tank is sufficient to cause it's pressure to drop below 40 psig, then the pump will come on every time the toilet is flushed.
You may want to consider installing a much larger bladder tank. The bigger your tank, the less frequently your sump pump will come on, but the longer it will run each time it does come on.
The tank is waterlogged -- you can try draining it entirely (after turning of pump, of oourse) and then checking the pressure. Should be 2 lb under the cut-in pressure -- 38 in your case.
See if that will extend the life of the tank a little while -- but a new tank is in your future sooner rather than later.
Um, I didn't think you used a sump pump for potable water. O_o
TDD
Daring Dufas:
I think she means a well pump. That's a cylindrical pump that goes right down the water well. But it's still underwater, so it's just another kind of submersible pump.
Dpb: If the tank were waterlogged, then the diphragm in the tank is torn. So, once you emptied the water out of the tank, the air pressure on the air side of the diaphragm would also leak out. So, why would you measure 38 psi? It would seem to me that with the tank empty and the diaphragm torn, the pressure on both sides of the torn diaphragm will be atmospheric pressure, wouldn't it?
mcdonnep wrote in news:4d7c5$520fd282$cf3aab60$ snipped-for-privacy@news.flashnewsgroups.com:
A little bit of Googling shows that the FL7 is a 22-gallon tank.
If you're interested, ask, and I'll post the details of how I got to this figure... but I calculate that with your on/off pressures at 40/60, you can withdraw *no more than* 5.9 gallons from the tank before the pump kicks on.
If you have a 5-gallon toilet, I'd expect the pump to come on nearly every time you flush it, about 17 times out of every 20. That is perfectly normal.
If the toilet uses less water than 5 gallons per flush, this is *not* normal. For example, if it's a
1.6-gallon toilet, you should expect that, on average, the pump would run about one flush in every four.So before anyone can tell you (as some have tried to) that your pressure tank is definitely waterlogged, you need to tell us:
(a) How much water the toilet uses per flush (should be marked inside the tank)
(b) What happens if you flush the toilet, wait for the toilet to fill *and* for the pump to stop running, then flush it again? Does the pump kick on before the toilet fills, or not?
(c) How often does the pump run in one hour if nobody is using any water at all? Any answer other than zero means you have a leak somewhere; the higher the number, the worse the leak.
nestork wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@diybanter.com:
If the system's open to the atmosphere, yes. That's why you close the shutoff valve before you pressurize the tank.
There can be a pinhole leak that takes a long time to lose a significant amount of air so that if re-establish a new working pressure/volume one can often get by for quite some time.
Or, of course, could have lost air to atmosphere thru a leak Schroeder valve and the bladder/diaphragm is fine...
When I was a kid back on the family farm, we got our water from a natural spring that had been dug out and turned into a 2,000 gal reservoir with a little pump house built over it. The pump used to pump water to the house 100 yards away was a long cylindrical well pump. Perhaps my father used such a pump designed for a deep well because the water had to come up out of gully where the spring was and on to the house which was some distance away. There was a pressurized tank in the basement and as I remember, a toilet flush could start the pump running but those were the older (wasteful) toilets that actually flushed the contents down to the septic tank with one flush. It's been
40 years since I've seen it so my experience is a bit out of date but from what I've seen in other homes over the years, the basic well pump installations are all the same. ^_^TDD
That's a good test because it eliminates any potential slow leak.
at all? Any answer
Also a good test. Both need to be performed to determine if there really is a leak.
On Sat, 17 Aug 2013 15:52:35 -0500, dpb wrote in Re Re: frequent pump runs:
+1 on the "waterlogged". Here's a bit more detail on hot to correct. 1) Shut power to pump2) Open a "lowest" sink or hose valve and drain tank completely. Leave valve open.
3) Add air pressure to you tank until you are at 38 psi.4) Close the valve opened in (2) above.
5) Turn on pump.If the problem happens again in less than a year or two, you will need a new pressure tank, but can get by for as long as you are willing to repeat the above procedure. However that is not recommended as frequent cycling of the pump shortens it's life.
I've never checked pressure in mine and note that last tank was installed 8 years ago. I had written on the tank that the installer said bladder pressure should be set at 25 - 28 pounds.
This is third pressure tank on my well over its ~35 year lifetime.
On 8/18/2013 8:19 AM, Frank wrote: ...
Should be 2-lb under the cut-in pressure -- which implies you're running a 30-50 cycle; pretty common as well...
Which averages out to about a dozen yr/tank which is about what one can expect on average -- it's quite possible OP can stretch the life of his for several more years depending on the state it's currently in and precisely where his leak is and how long it's been neglected in the current state.
??? I have never heard of a tank going bad that fast and I have been mainin tain my well and neighbors for a long, long time. My well was put in in th e 80s and the tank is still alive and well. A tank failing in 6-7 years wo uld have to be due to something in the water eating the tank or bladder.
Harry K
On 8/18/2013 8:54 AM, Harry K wrote: ...
...
I don't think the quality of tanks/diaphragms is what it used to be is a large (the largest?) part of it -- the first on the new well here lasted nearly 30 yr; the replacement of it was also long-lived but not as long as that I'd guess; that was during the hiatus while was gone for 30-yr in VA/TN. In the fifteen yr since we've been back we're now on the third--counting the one that was failing when moved back...same batwell, same batwater.
I think next time I'm just going back to the old straight tank and air bubble over it -- sure, have to recharge occasionally but there's no bladder/diaphragm to fail.
How much, if any, has to do w/ all the new EPA requirements on manufacturing so that the rubber compounds aren't what they used to be or how much is just seeing how cheaply they can be made I don't know, but I'd surely not bet on any new tanks lasting nearly what the old ones used to...
"Robert Green" wrote in news:kuqe35$u4m$1@dont- email.me:
The main reason it's a good test is that you *know* that the tank is as full of water as it's going to get when you perform it, and you *know* how much water will be withdrawn from the tank -- which means that you *know* that the pump _should not run_ (assuming a 5-gallon or less flush) -- which in turn means that if the pump does run, then you know the tank is waterlogged.
On Sun, 18 Aug 2013 09:19:16 -0400, Frank wrote in Re Re: frequent pump runs:
Well, if the pump power-on pressure is 40 psi, most people would set the empty tank bladder pressure to about 37 psi. I'm not sure what happens if you do that.
That seems like a lot. How do you know the tank really needed replacing and not just a recharge?
Thanks for all of the advice. I am going to shut off the water, drain the tank, and reset the precharge on the tank to 38 psi. I will report back. thanks to all.
You shouldn't have to recharge it. Before the bladder type tanks, the traditional ones for decades had simple self regulation systems that added air in automatically if needed. It's just that like everything else that after a long enough time they would fail too and then the tank would water log.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.