I know a failing pump can cause that behaviour, but backflow valves should not fail...I guess. It's a heck of a coincidence that this happened when your tank bladder deflated.
I know, and you're right. I've just been cutting it off, after using all the water we need, then cutting it on as needed, until Monday, when I can call the well guy back out, and find out why. You would think that valve would have to stop the water, from going back. I don't know unless it went bad and stuck open. Was thinking about unscrewing it all, and taking a look at it. I put that one-way shut-off valve in, no more than six or eight months ago, when I replaced the tank, so that is very soon for it to go bad. Since there were no leaks on the house side, and the valve is on the pump side, the water should stay in the tank until you use it; I would've thought. About a year or so ago the well man had to come and pull the pump out and replace the leather above the submersible pump with a metal one; which he said would last. Also, John, it had been doing this for quite a while, before I pumped the bladder up, every time I was in the backyard, I would hear it kick on and then off; I would say no one's using water, why is it doing that, must be a leak, and go hunting for one; never found one though, until putting my ear to the pipe submersible pumps in. "Not sure about this".
@John Brunner, go figure, $38.00 for a new pressure shut-off valve, it fixed it. Hope it last longer than that one did. Nice to not hear water; not going back to the well, and pressure staying up, until we use it.
Is that located at the holding tank? Good job on getting it fixed! And you can ignore my comment on the Rant thread.
Yeah, it's right before it. Thanks, and as I was thinking back to when I put the tank in; the instructions that came with the tank said, you have to have a pressure shut-off valve before the tank, so I did what it said. Worked until it didn't keep water from going back. After I took it off, I brought it in the house, and poured water on the exit side and the water went right through, so I knew I needed another one. The reason I think you have to have one with this tank is because it is a 119-gallon tank, maybe. The old tank never had one, and if it's something with the pump, it will show later or not; either way works great now, and holds water pressure until you use it.
That's what I was thinking. I bet the volume of water puts a lot more back pressure on the supply line than a 20 gallon tank.
Your backflow valve reminds me of a device I came across when I moved here and went on my first ever well system. There is a product called a Cycle Stop Valve (CSV). The idea is to reduce the frequency of your well pump from cycling on & off, because it is the Start/Stop that wears it out...continuous pumping is its ideal state. Here's how it works: Pressure switches have Kick In/Kick Out thresholds. With a 30/50 switch, the pump turns on when the pressure gets down to 30psi, and the pump stops when the pressure reaches 50psi. A Cycle Stop Valve is designed to sense a continuous flow of water and keep the pressure dead in the middle of the switch thresholds (in the case of a 30/50 switch, it keeps the pressure at 40psi.) As long as there is demand, the pressure tank is never filled so it never hits 50psi, meaning that the pump continues to run and does not cycle. For some reason, when I first looked at these, I decided that they are best suited for commercial use (golf course/greenhouse irrigation systems, boiler rooms/chillers, etc.) But this short (2 minute) video I've posted below says that the minimum flow is 1gpm. I know that a fully open outdoor faucet on my system is a little over 5gpm.
Yeah, the well is; so far so good on mine. Not running except if we use a lot of it, down to 40 lbs. Thought it was gonna be unfixable there for a while. Not sure of the gpm, on mine, but has a lot more pressure than the one in that video. Of course, I know mine is a bigger setup.
After having flushed the tank, so many times, and trying to figure out what was making the well pump, kick on and off so much. It loosened the iron up in the tank and lines. The water started to be a little orange. So I just went upstairs and got my water cooler, filled it for drinking water, then went out too well and changed the six-month whole-house filter. Kind of wanted to wait, it was to dirty of water for me, had only been two months since I had changed it. Took housing off, cleaned it with bleach, then added a cup of bleach, and changed it out with a new filter. Thought I can keep a record here, so I will know how often to change it out. Letting the bleach come through the lines slowly, always seems to work on getting the iron out of pipes, and toilets.
Geez, this is some fancy stuff. Since we're in an apartment with (I guess) city water, we don't have access to a well. That said, we do use a counter-top water filter from ZenWater, which works just fine. We just change the filters according to need/a schedule, and there you go!