This past weekend I set things up for winter in our barn, which involves filling a heated 100 gallon water trough. The trough was nearly full when suddenly water flow stopped completely. I shut off the water supply, then went up to our house to ask my gf what she thought happened.
When I found my gf she told me there was no water in the house. She was rinsing out her coffee mug and water suddenly stopped. Hmmm.
We have a well. The “well room” is underground, below a shed on the hill behind our house. I climbed down into the room and everything looked fine; but really all that is there is a 3 or 4 inch pipe going down into the earth with a rope going down to the pump. My gf has told me (we have no documentation about the original well set-up) that there is a water line leaving the pump house going to the barn, and a second line going to the house/garage where the holding/pressure tank, softener system, and iron filtration is set up, and sure enough there are two pipes leaving the well room.
I went to the garage and reset the breaker for the pump, then went to look at the pressure/holding tank. Pressure was 0 PSI and the tank was empty. WTF? I played around with the tank, turned it on/off/on and then gradually it started to fill.
So, I “fixed” the problem, Yay me. But I do not understand how this happened. Surely there must be a back-flow preventer at the holding tank, right? But if so how would the tank have drained? The two separate water lines idea seems likely. The barn is downhill from our house and the water pressure is very high, like pressure-washer high. Also the barn water smells/tastes different than our house water. The more I think about this, the more I think there isn’t a back-flow preventer, but if there isn’t how does the holding tank pressure not affect the pump?
I’m on a well as too. What has happened to me is if for instance a toilet is running for a long time, the well goes temporarily dry. I have to wait a little bit for the well to fill back up/recharge then it’s all good.
What I do in the above case is just turn the pump off for about 15 minutes.
You where filling a horse trough. Of course all wells are different, but perhaps that is it.
Yep, I assume that is what happened. What I totally don’t get is how our home pressure/holding tank drained. Home water wasn’t being used while I was working on the barn until my gf went to rinse a mug.
I’m talking about my system here. But - If the well goes dry, the pressure tank will push out all demanded water with the pressure it has in it. When water is pumped into it from the well pump, it increases the pressure in the pressure tank air bladder. When water comes in the pressure tank, it compresses the air bladder which increases the air pressure in the air bladder.
There is an adjustable limit switch on my pressure tank to turn the well pump on and off. I think my low limit (turn pump on) is around 55 psi and high limit (turn pump off) is about 70 psi.
Do note that I’m not a plumber and this is only the second well I’ve been on. But, I’ve been on this one for 30 years. And I moved and rebuilt the plumbing mechanical room from one part of the house to another.
Do you have two pressure tanks? One for the barn and one for the house?
The water for the barn supposedly comes from the well directly to the barn. Barn use should have zero effect on the house unless barn use drains the well. But even with the well being temporarily dry, the holding/pressure tank in the garage shouldn’t be affected unless someone uses that water in the house.
(My system sounds like yours, with a air bladder, limit switch, etc)
ETA: As I understand it, the water pressure in the barn (which is amazingly high) is purely created by the well house being far uphill from the barn…
The switch for the pump should be controlled by a pressure sensor installed near the pressure tank. If your barn water wasn’t directly connected to the pressure tank (i.e. if there was a check valve) then there wouldn’t be anything to tell the pump to turn on when you turn on the water in the barn.
Aren’t those things after the pressure tank in the house?
It sounds like in your setup you should have a check valve between the tank and the filter/softener to make sure water isn’t running backward through those things and down to the barn.
My house was built in '82. No permitting in place at the time.
Incoming from the well went to to the pressure tank in the house. Good so far. BUT the ‘plumbers’ that put this together originally teed off the main incoming well line before the pressure tank to provide the cold side of the upstairs shower. So, water for the shower would come from the pressure tank, or directly out of the ground. Water moved two ways in the line between the pressure tank and the well to feed the upstairs shower (that was very, very strange). Well water is very, very cold out of the ground where I live and a shower could be a bit of an exciting experience if the pump turned on.
It took me a while to sort that all out. There was a lot of “Now wait a minute, I need to think about this”
Well (heh), I need to climb down and look around in the well room. My gf is under the impression water to the barn runs from the well room directly to the barn, not going to the house/pressure tank first, but that cannot be the case (I don’t think).
When I was in the well room this past weekend I thought I saw two separate pipes leaving, but I’m questioning wether maybe one was electrical.
It’s certainly possible that there’s a T going to barn in one direction and tank in the other. I expect that would work in general, and you’d get pressure from the tank in the barn (plus the downhill pressure). It’s just not ideal because you could get weird flow and pressure issues.
Part of the problem is I haven’t been involved with the water issue recently. When I moved in with my gf the well water was delicious. Then, six years ago there was fracking going on nearby and our water turned to shit. We contacted the fracking people as well as our attorney. The fracking company had a geologist who said the sudden change in water quality was unrelated to the fracking. Our lawyer looked into fighting this, but others who were trying were getting nowhere.
My gf asked me to investigate and I did. Neighbors had similar issues and those who tried addressing this through various water treatment devices found no help after spending from 1-3 thousand dollars. I bleached our well, which helped for a month or so. My gf thought I wasn’t being aggressive enough, so one day I came home and a company was installing a $3,000 softening system. It had no effect other than making our water soft. It still tasted/smelled bad.
This past summer she contacted a different water treatment company. They said their system would work, but was expensive. She paid them $12,000 for the system we currently have, and I have to say it is better than the previous system. Our water is usable and the super-filtered water in our kitchen is pretty good!
Along with everything else they did, they moved the pressure tank from the well room to the garage.
So, here are some pictures. I took a few and will break this into several posts. I still am not certain I understand how water is getting to our barn!
This is our garage. Pressure tank is on the far right.
Where the water enters our garage.
The copper is the water leaving the garage, feeding the house.
Looking down into the well-room. The dirty white cap is the well.
The well room. The two lines here are connected. I think the top line goes to the house, and the bottom line goes to the barn.
Does all of this make sense? At one time the pressure tank was in the well room, it was moved to the garage recently.
So it seems like this is the situation and mystery solved because your well temporarily went dry? From googling, it seems like it is common to have the check valve installed at the pump.
I think what’s happening here is the line in the well house splits, as you say, and goes to the house and the barn. Inside the house, I think (it’s hidden behind the blue barrel) the line splits again. One goes to the pressure tank, and one goes to the filtering system.
Just above the blue barrel and to the left of the lower blue filter is a metal gadget. That appears to be a check valve, which would prevent backflow from the house through the filters.
So when you turn the water on in the barn, water is going to flow from the pressure tank back through the line to the well shed, and from there to the barn. When the pressure tank is depleted the pump turns on, pushing water both to the barn and toward the house and tank. So the line from the well shed to the house will carry water different ways depending on whether the pump is on or not.
The check valve prevents any water from the house flowing back out, which is good.
If you ran the well dry then you would run out of water pressure in the barn and the house at just about the same time. The pressure tank in the house is definitely pushing water to the barn.