Having water/well issues. Need advice...

[DLBDS]

Backstory... The afternoon before my daughter and I left for WDW last month, we completely lost water to our house. Husband said it came back the next day and it's been fine ever since. Last weekend same thing happened. We lost water to the house. Well guy said we needed a new pump. We replaced the pump and everything was fine until the following afternoon and we lost water again. We turn the pump off at the breaker box and within,I don't know, 1/2 hour or so we hear glug, glug, glug like all the water is leaking out somewhere. (It's sounds like when you get water out of one of those water dispensers with the big water jugs inverted on top.) We will hear that sound for a couple of hours or so then it'll stop. When we turn on a faucet.... no water....Until we turn the pump back on. Where did all that water in the tank go?? Just because we turned off the pump doesn't mean we don't have water under the house in the tank. What is that glug,glug,glug sound?? Sounds to me like the water is leaking out somewhere. I would like to think back into the well but not sure that's the case. Anyone have a clue what's going on here? The guy that replaced the pump told us what no one wants to hear.... your well is running dry and you need to dig a new one. We're not so sure though.

 

[marlynnp]

what kind of tank do you have?

 

[DLBDS]

what kind of tank do you have?

Pressure tank with a bladder that's all my DH knows.

 

[marlynnp]

If you have the pump off, gravity (and the pressure inside the tank) will allow the water to drain back out into the well after a bit of time.
I believe it's your well going dry.

 

[Waddler]

If you have the pump off, gravity (and the pressure inside the tank) will allow the water to drain back out into the well after a bit of time.
I believe it's your well going dry.

^ITA that this is likely what's going on. Maybe there's a leak somewhere, but your pump guy would probably know enough to diagnose it (or it'd be obvious!).

 

[hegsag]

That stinks!!!! I agree that it sounds like your well is going dry.

 

[tvguy]

My parents had a well at the house they had for 53 years, I sold it 2 years ago. What I am curious about is why the guy who put the new pump in didn't give you the following measurements when he put the new pump in.
1) Depth of well
2) Depth at which there is water.
3) Depth of pump.
That is standard procedure with pump guys here.
Last pump my mom had put in they put the pump at 70 feet, the water level was 50 feet, the well depth was 120 feet. The original paper work shows water was at 40 feet in 1960 when the first well was dug, so water table dropped 10 feet in 50 years. No pump depth for the first pump, it was an above group turbine pump, they stopped using those 40 years ago, everyone now uses a self priming submersible pump.

 

[IndyRnRfan]

I don't know your set up but if our pump is turned off, no water will come out of our faucets even though we have water and pressure in the tank.

You could have a bad tank(leaking bladder, sometimes it sticks to itself, etc..). Our tank sits in the basement so there is no way water could leak out and drain back to the well. If yours is below grade(under ground level) your water can't leak back into the well. Even if it's not below ground, I've never seen a water tank filled from the bottom so I don't think water can leak back to the well anyway. Water can't flow up out of the tank.

Do you know if your pump pressure switch is going bad? Ours went bad after 7 years.

 

[bsblady01]

your well went dry

 

[Mizzoufan]

Sadly I think your well is going dry.

 

[IndyRnRfan]

Do you have neighbors? Check with them and see if they are having problems too. If you are the only one and your wells were put in at roughly the same time, I doubt it's your well going dry. Do you live in a drought stricken area?

 

[3 MEN AND A BOAT]

I don't know your exact set-up but if it's not visibly leaking out somewhere it must be going back into your well. do you have a check valve between your pump and tank. Without this their is nothing to stop the water from retreating back into the well. It could've went bad. I don't think I'd be to quick to believe my well went dry.

ETA- a check valve also keeps the water up to the pump so it doesn't loose prime every time it shuts off. Their about $50 at lowes/Home Depot.

 

[wdw70sgirl]

This sounds terrible! We just switched from well water to city water. We had to hire someone to come out and run a line, but it didn't cost that much and has been great. Can you do this??

 

[tvguy]

This sounds terrible! We just switched from well water to city water. We had to hire someone to come out and run a line, but it didn't cost that much and has been great. Can you do this??

Oh lord, WHY would you ever do that? I grew up drinking well water (birth to age 24) and have been drinking city water for 34 years now, that is the one thing I wish I could change. Nothing is better than well water. No chlorine. Constant water pressure. No $100 bill every month for water.......maybe a $2,500 bill for a new pump every 15 years. The first house my parents had they did get an option to get city water, flat rate. My dad signed up just for irrigation. We had 5 acres. The house stayed on the well.

 

[HM]

Do you have neighbors? Check with them and see if they are having problems too. If you are the only one and your wells were put in at roughly the same time, I doubt it's your well going dry. Do you live in a drought stricken area?

We had a well at around 250ft and our neighbors had one at 700ft. They were not on the same aquifer. So asking neighbors may not help out much.

 

[Grmnshplvr]

Oh lord, WHY would you ever do that? I grew up drinking well water (birth to age 24) and have been drinking city water for 34 years now, that is the one thing I wish I could change. Nothing is better than well water. No chlorine. Constant water pressure. No $100 bill every month for water.......maybe a $2,500 bill for a new pump every 15 years. The first house my parents had they did get an option to get city water, flat rate. My dad signed up just for irrigation. We had 5 acres. The house stayed on the well.

we did this as well because I couldn't stand the smell of the sulfur in the well water, or the damage it was doing to my appliances. Every August we ran out of water. It was too much. our water bill is $30 a month

 

[tvguy]

we did this as well because I couldn't stand the smell of the sulfur in the well water, or the damage it was doing to my appliances. Every August we ran out of water. It was too much. our water bill is $30 a month

LOL your well water sounds like our municipal water!

 

[scrapquitler]

Backstory... The afternoon before my daughter and I left for WDW last month, we completely lost water to our house. Husband said it came back the next day and it's been fine ever since. Last weekend same thing happened. We lost water to the house. Well guy said we needed a new pump. We replaced the pump and everything was fine until the following afternoon and we lost water again. We turn the pump off at the breaker box and within,I don't know, 1/2 hour or so we hear glug, glug, glug like all the water is leaking out somewhere. (It's sounds like when you get water out of one of those water dispensers with the big water jugs inverted on top.) We will hear that sound for a couple of hours or so then it'll stop. When we turn on a faucet.... no water....Until we turn the pump back on. Where did all that water in the tank go?? Just because we turned off the pump doesn't mean we don't have water under the house in the tank. What is that glug,glug,glug sound?? Sounds to me like the water is leaking out somewhere. I would like to think back into the well but not sure that's the case. Anyone have a clue what's going on here? The guy that replaced the pump told us what no one wants to hear.... your well is running dry and you need to dig a new one. We're not so sure though.

Maybe you need a new one of those blue tanks in the basement??? I know that if our well pump is turned off, we don't get any water at all...why do you keep turning the pump off?

I would suggest calling a DIFFERENT well guy to come look and see what is going on.

 

[DLBDS]

Thanks for all the replies! After a couple of tests to check the pressure, we reluctantly agree that we probably do not have a leak and do indeed need a new well drilled. We have enough water to get us through each day as long as we don't flush toilets (loving our rain barrels even more right now), only do one load of laundry and each take one shower. The pump stays off the rest of the time to give the water time to build back up in the well. We don't want all that sediment to reappear in our faucet water. That was awful. Permit to drill another one is costing $400. Waiting on that then we'll proceed with drilling a new one. Hope everyone is learning from my bad experience.... Don't waste fresh water. It's not an unlimited resource.

 

[tvguy]

Thanks for all the replies! After a couple of tests to check the pressure, we reluctantly agree that we probably do not have a leak and do indeed need a new well drilled. We have enough water to get us through each day as long as we don't flush toilets (loving our rain barrels even more right now), only do one load of laundry and each take one shower. The pump stays off the rest of the time to give the water time to build back up in the well. We don't want all that sediment to reappear in our faucet water. That was awful. Permit to drill another one is costing $400. Waiting on that then we'll proceed with drilling a new one. Hope everyone is learning from my bad experience.... Don't waste fresh water. It's not an unlimited resource.

Make sure they go plenty deep this time. That way you can just add pipe in the future if the water level does down. And you might want to put a sand filter on. My mom had to do that when she switched from an above ground turbine pump, to a submersible. The submersible pump cause a bit of turbulence that kicked up sand when it turned for for the first couple of years. After that, she took the filter off because it stopped kicking up sand.