Well pressure / Water issue

Question

Well depth - 50ish feet? Pretty shallow here.

Pump size - unknown

Pressure switch - 30/50

Pressure tank PSI - 28 PSI

Bought this small house (640sqft, 1bd/ba) about a year ago. The water here has always been pretty rusty, and I recently noticed that the well pipe was pretty much flush with the ground and had a crack in the cap. 2 days ago, I had someone come out to the house and weld an extension on to the well and replace the cap. At that time, we also bleached the system and let it sit overnight. The next day while running the shower and faucets to cycle the bleach through, I lost all pressure. I checked the pressure switch and it wasn’t kicking on unless I tapped the contacts. So I replaced the switch (couldn’t find a square d switch so I bought an Everlast from Home Depot. I checked the PSI in the tank which was at 20 psi, so I bumped it to 28 psi.

Even with a 30/50 switch, my pressure stays at a constant 28 (same as the PSI I have in the tank). Even if I run both faucets and the shower, the pressure really doesn’t change. Same goes for when I’m not running water at all. Shouldn’t my pressure be closer to 50, or at least somewhere between 30-50?

Any ideas on what the issue could be here?

Answer 1

Is the pump turning on and off via the pressure switch? If so, the gauge is probably bad and stuck at 28 PSI.

If not, the pump is unable to make pressure (50 PSI) and is running constantly (which will give you a large power bill. It may also overheat the pump.)

Possibly the old switch was adjusted to work at a lower pressure, even if it shipped set to 50/30, and your pump has not been able to make 50 PSI for a long time. That would go with the 20 PSI precharge setting.

Possibly the chlorine has aggravated the rust situation to the point that the pump no longer works as it should, or enough stuff got knocked down the well when working on the casing to clog the pump.