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I recently hooked up a shallow well jet pump to a 5,000gal tank. It seems primed when I open the outlet valve to pour water in, water flows out.

I flip the breaker and it makes an odd rough clicking sound as though it’s trying to pump. It soon stops making that sound and seems to be running properly and there is good pressure at the spigot.

When I close the spigot the pump shuts off. When I open the spigot there isn’t any pressure and the pump doesn’t cut-on.

I assumed that when I closed the spigot the pressure quickly built to the cut-off pressure, but that can’t be the case since there isn’t any pressure in the system when I re-open it. I’ve been told I need a pressure tank, which is in the plan, but that doesn’t seem like it would solve this problem.

Any suggestions?

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  • What is the purpose of your set up? Water on demand at a fixture or just turn the pump on to fill some containers?? What is the end goal? What kind/model of pump. Is it designed to shut of with pressure (or with an external pressure switch) or only when power is cut off?
    – Alaska Man
    Oct 19, 2020 at 17:42

2 Answers 2

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When you do not have a pressure tank you put a lot of extra work on the pump if you want anything more than to fill your large tank.

If you only ever filled your large tank you could eliminate a valve or spigot and use a float switch to fill the tank once it is full turn the power off, when the level drops turn it on.

If you want to use water off a spigot yes you need a pressure tank or you may burn your pump out out fairly quickly, a tiny leak can have the pump kicking on and off dozens of times a minute hard on the pressure switch and pump. As you found no real pressure available, this same thing happens with a waterlogged pressure tank and I have seen pumps overheated and damaged from constant on off cycles.

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You presumably have a pressure switch with low pressure cutoff (pretty standard to keep from running the pump when the well runs dry.)

By having no pressure tank, you have no reserve to maintain pressure as the pump starts when the pressure drops. So, assuming your system has no leaks at all, when you shut the pump off it's sitting at the cutoff pressure (say 50 PSI) and when you open the valve with the pump off, the 50 PSI (with no pressure tank to back it up) plummets immediately past the (presumed) 30 PSI cut in and down to the low pressure cut-off pressure. Water is "incompressible" so 50 PSI water in a system with no pressure tank has basically no pressure as soon as a drop or two is released. If you system has any leaks, even tiny ones, then you'll have no pressure even befor you open the spigot.

You should have both a pressure tank and a pressure gauge as a part of any well pump system.

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