Water Well Repair Questions

If a well pump stops pumping water there is a few possible causes. The pump motor has failed. You may have a bad pressure switch or control box. You may have a broken wire or broken pipe. The last thing that may be the cause is a dry well. First check the electrical breaker or fuses. If the breaker is good the next thing you may want to try is tapping on the pressure switch with a rubber or wooden object to see if the switch is stuck in the open position. If the water comes back on the switch is failing and you should call a professional well service company.

If you are experiencing intermittent pauses in water and then it goes back to full pressure, have low water pressure, dirty water, water is surging, or you experience spits of air coming from your faucet this is an indication that you have trouble with either the water well pump, pressure switch, sensor failing, check valve on well pump or the water tank.

If you are out of water it could be a number of things…….First thing to do is check the well or water pump breaker in the electrical breaker box. If that is ok then you need to check the pressure gauge on the water (well) tank to see if that is reading any pressure. If the pressure gauge reads over 40 psi it could possibly be a filter is blocked or needs to be changed (if you have one) or the pressure gauge is broken. Frequently we see broken pressure gauges or gauges that get stuck. Pressure switches can also be stuck open due to a blocked nipple from iron or manganese build up. Another possibility is a broken wire going to the pump or the pump is bad and needs to be replaced. These are a few of the most commons things found by our technicians.

When water wells are drilled the driller is required to fill a well report out and submit it to the state and home owner. Older wells are sometimes hard to find information on due to records being lost or not turned in to the state. 

You might find pump stickers on the well tank in the basement that tell you the horse power and GPM or you might find a control box on the wall with the information.

We put all the well information under the well cap in permanent marker. Some drillers stamp the information in the under side of the well cap.

IF YOU DECIDE TO TAKE THE WELL CAP OFF AND LOOK FOR THE INFORMATION TURN THE ELECTRIC BREAKER OFF FOR THE WELL PUMP BEFORE TOUCHING THE WELL CAP. THERE IS ELECTRIC WIRES UNDER WELL CAPS.

The internet and You tube are powerful but you can get some bad ideas and or spend a lot of money trying to fix the issue. We have had customers change pressure switches , then the well tank and still have issues. Some even change their own pumps and still have trouble. By the time they call a professional they have hundreds to a few thousand dollars into repairs and still have trouble. Qualified professional water well contractors, like Kocher use specialized equipment, materials, and techniques to diagnose problems and know what is wrong with a well system within a few minutes most of the time.

CAUTION !!! We advise people not to try and pull their own well pumps. Well depths vary and the deeper the well the heavier the pump, pipe, and wire will be. Pumps can also be on coil pipe or stick pipe [20’ threaded pipe] which is very dangerous to try and pull by hand. 

Most people can top their pool off with their well but you should try to find out what GPM [ gallons per minute] the well is producing. If a well produces over 10 GPM you should not have any issues. If the well produces less than 10 GPM you need to be very careful not to pump the well down. 

The most common problem is you pumped the well below the water vein and the water is now cascading into the well disturbing the well. Shut the hose off and let set for an hour then go back to normal use. The well will settle and clear within a few hours or a day.

Service rates vary depending on what kind of problem you have and whether you need a whole new well pump or let’s just say a new pressure gauge. We charge a service call or travel time  depending on the distance. An hourly rate for any work done by our technicians once at the job plus the cost of any materials used. There is a huge difference in prices for the well pumps due to horsepower and the gallons per minute of the pump ends. All of the pumps that we install are professional grade pumps such as Goulds, Franklin Electric, Sta-Rite, Grundfos, etc. Pump prices can start at $857.00 and can exceed $2500 depending the depth of the well and the GPM the home requires. If you know the depth of your well or you know the size of the pump that is in your well we can give you an estimate on what the cost might be prior to coming out.

First check the pressure gauge on the well tank. If the PSI on the gauge is above 30 to 40 PSI it could be that you have a water filter that is blocked and needs to be changed. If the pressure gauge is at 0 you should check the electrical breaker or any electric fuses. If the electric breaker or fuse is tripped or blown you could have a bad well pump or a wire that is shorting to ground. If the electrical breaker is not tripped you could have a bad pressure switch, sensor [constant pressure systems], bad wire, or an open winding in the pump motor. After checking all the above you should call a professional Well Driller/service company. Kocher’s Water Pumps & Tanks Inc. 610-837-8226

You may have over pumped the well filling a pool or watering a lawn. Dirty water coming from a water well can be caused by a power outage and the PSI on the system going to 0 PSI and then the power coming back on and going back to full pressure. When this happens the burst of water PSI blows build up in the pipes loose and spits it out your faucet. Run the water for a few minutes to see if it clears. If a check valve in well fails you could have water backwashing out of the well pump disturbing the well. Sometimes when this happens the well pump will cycle without any water being used in the home. If the water gets dirty after rain or snow melt the well is affected by rain fall or snow melt which is a sign you may have surface water entering the well. Well tanks that fail can also turn water orange , black or even give a different smell to the water. A crack or broken well casing can also cause dirty water. Broken water lines can also cause dirty water.  You should call a professional Well company to troubleshoot .  Kocher’s Water Pumps & Tanks Inc. 610-837-8226

 Spitting air from plumbing fixtures can be caused by a bad check valve on the well pump, pressure switch that is failing, well pump starting to fail or a possible crack in a water line between the well tank and well pump. Call a professional Well Driller/service company. Kocher’s Water Pumps & Tanks Inc. 610-837-8226

Yes you can run a well pump on a generator but you need to make sure the generator is large enough. If you do not know the horse power of the well pump it is hard to determine the size generator you need. Well pumps need a certain KW to get them started and should not be hooked up to generator with other equipment or appliances plugged into the generator unless all electrical output was calculated. During Hurricane Sally years ago Many people tried hooking their well pumps to generators that were too small and when the power came back on the well pumps were going out on thermal overload due to being run on a generator that was not the right size. We changed many well pumps after the power came back on due to generators being undersized. You should contact the pump  manufacture or a professional pump company to make sure the size generator you need.

Water wells are different depths and well pumps can be different sizes. Some shallow well pumps are pulled by hand. Most of the time you need to use a pump puller or if the well pump is on stick pipe[ 20’ threaded pipe] you need to have a hoist truck to remove the well pump.

Locating a buried well can sometimes be very easy and other times it can be very difficult. We use different equipment to locate buried water wells. Sometimes we hook a locator to a wire in the home and trace the wire to the well. If there is no wire we take a pipe off in the house and send a wire out through the pipe and trace the wire with a locator. Homes built in the early 1970’s and older always had buried wells. Some wells were in well pits usually a 4’ x 4’ pit with a concrete or slate cover. Other wells were direct buried. A lot of wells in the Lehigh Valley were drilled next to the house foundation within 5’. Metal detectors only work if the well cap is a few inches under ground. 

Yes in most cases the well should be raised above grade and have a sanitary well cap installed. Buried wells or wells below grade are ok if the well seal is working properly. If the well seal is bad the well could get surface water in the well which could introduce bacteria to the well. Raising a well above grade and installing a sanitary well cap is the best way to insure you are not getting surface water into the well from the top or bugs crawling into the well cap. If you would like an estimate to raise your well above grade call Kocher’s Water Pumps & Tanks Inc. 610-837-8226

Yes water wells can be cleaned. Over years of use water wells can get built up with different minerals like Iron, manganese, calcium. Wells can be cleaned by brushing, acid washing, surge blocks, pumping, hydro fracking or blown clean with high pressure air.  

Like humans wells can also develop issues over years causing water flow in the well to slow down or the well just starts getting dirty. Some wells need a liner installed because the steel casing is bad. Water Wells can be rehabilitated by cleaning with different techniques. The well needs to be looked at and possibly have a well camera lowered into the well to see what condition the well is in or what will be the best rehab technique.

Well inspections or maintenance can be done annually as preventive maintenance. Some customers like having their well system checked annually to make sure their well system is working properly. Some of the things that are checked are the air PSI in the well tank, pressure switch, fittings, and the well pump electrical readings.  We check the well pumps AMPS, OHMS, voltage and  also megger meter check the wiring.