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I live in a area where I have to use well water and I have a well house that runs to my home. The water work with great pressure for a while, and then suddenly stops and takes 30 minutes to come back on. I Have a well-x-Trol tank, a new pressure switch and a new pressure gauge. The water heater is rather new and I have copper and some plastic lines.

What do I need to do to fix my problem? Is it caused by the water pressure? Is the pressure too low, or too high? Is my pump bad?

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    When the water cuts off, what's happening, is there a trickle of water, is the pump running, what do the pressure gauges say? Do you have some reason to suspect the type of pipes is related to the water cutting off? Is it exactly 30 minutes every time, and if so, do you have some sort of timer in the system? Did you change something just before this started to happen? – BMitch♦ Jul 18 '13 at 11:16
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    Is the well running dry? – Chris Cudmore Jul 18 '13 at 12:40
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    30 minute wait sounds like a thermal cutout fuse taking time to cool back down and reset. Can you get to the motor and check how hot it's getting? – Wayfaring Stranger Jul 18 '13 at 13:24
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Have you listened (or measured) to see if the pressure switch is telling the pump to turn on? If the pressure switch is on and you're not getting water out of the pump you've got issues in the well (low water, bad pump) and you could be damaging your pump.

If you've got low pressure and the switch isn't on there is a problem with the switch (or tank, but that's a low possibility). Do a little bit of investigation and if you can provide more information we can probably provide a more informed answer.

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Have you checked the pre-load of the pressure tank? Improper pre-load can cause the pressure switches to operate improperly, causing the pump to either run too long or not often enough. Operating too long can cause a thermal cutout as mentioned by Wayfaring Stranger.

You should check with your tank documentation for the proper method of setting pre-load. A typical method involves shutting down power to the pump and letting the tank drain down until no water is left. Adjust the pre-load air pressure via the tank's schrader valve to a pressure equal to the setting of the low pressure switch.

Restore power to the pump and check for satisfactory operation.

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If your well recovery rate is too low (how quickly water refills the well bore from the surrounding rock), the pump may turn off to prevent damage from overheating (and even if it kept running, it wouldn't pull up much water). As wells age, their recovery rate goes down, and the recovery rate is affected by variation in water table levels.

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