Well Pump Troubleshooting at The Pressure Switch. DIY Test & Fix for No Water. 

I don’t even have well water, but I still watch your videos for the meticulous troubleshooting tips and clean water system installs. If i ever move to a home with a well I’ll be all set!

Many thanks for the tutorial. Retired and living in the Philippines. Been in a drought for 4 months here and finally gave up on the local water system. We are having a local guy drill us a well. He has drilled 2 recently within 400 yards of me. Says he expects to see a water source at around 220 feet. I watch everything you post. It lets me at least semi understand what to expect. I was a plant engineer, so I actually can design the pumps and piping systems, but the knowledge of what goes on under the ground is new for me. They would kill for a drilling rig like you have. They do it manually, and for the first 10 days, they did it with 4 men lifting the pipe with a 5 1/2" bit on it and dropping it down. Then using a scoop to pull up the spoil from the hole. Normally they have a gas motor that pulls the pipe up and drops it but it was in the shop for repairs. Just got it back yesterday, so everyone is relieved that the motor can do most of the hard work. Your info on your drilling days has been a very big help to me. These guys are literally in the stone age, but have no fear of hard work. So we have made progress although very slow. We are just over 80 feet down. Fingers crossed that we find the water like the neighbor. It is beautiful crystal clear water. Thanks again...👍

Ive dropped two well pumps,wire,seals, bladder tanks at my 2 separate lands...Ive from the inner city..never seen a well pump in my life...This guy has taught me everything I needed...I enjoy this channel and never subscribed to anyone until this guy...Support!...When I turn on the pump Im grateful for the youtubers....

You’re the man! Always learn something new from your videos.

I've learned so much from you, I really appreciate you taking the time to do these videos

Love the way you break everything down! Very simple processes.

Glad to see you're feeling better!

Outstanding!!! I wish I could have learned from you in 1982 when I bought a house with a well and had to learn by trial and error.

Excellent trouble shooting video, Good coverage of amp and volt readings,

This amp reading part of this was exactly what I needed to know. Many, many thanks!

Excellent, we'll explained!!!!🎉😅

Great Video! I'm going to keep this one handy and save it

Very good information

Very detailed explanation of the well pump system !!

1:01 Spider: "No problem, here's that pressure gauge!"

Dang! Did you see that spider at the 1-minute mark??? LOL!

Another video with very informative details. Thanks Philip Have a great day.🍻🍻

EXCELLENT. THANK YOU!!!

Nice, good knowledge to share, thanks man..!!!

2 days without water? I would have done watched some of your videos and made a trip to lowes or home depot! We finally have our new well drilled after waiting 7 months,. Waiting for health dept. to give us the ok for the water sample.😁 Well got struck by lightning and melted the casing to the pump. Be Safe!

Do a video on filter systems please Thank you

Another good educational video…thank you.

You're so great,,thank you so much for all the help..guys like you keep the world going

Thanks phil i got my cistrine taken care of. I added more hydro cement to the bowl setup and that should hold. so far so good and we have had rains. Much love youre a good soul for finding me after i only sent you what i did. You will be rewarded with a soul like that.

Phillip Poseidon, the God of water! Great video Phillip, you are a hard worker who cares!😂

Looks like yall installed this one. I appreciate that yall write the needed psi on the tank. I would suggest also writing the install date on the tank. I know they come with a date code, but having it written on the tank would make it easier for home buyers or home inspectors determine how old the tank is.

Great video and explanation of how to use a clamp-on ammeter for troubleshooting. One thing that was not mentioned is that you can also use an ammeter to check the integrity of the discharge pipe from the pump to the well head. It is not uncommon for a submersible pump to break off at the point of attachment to the discharge pipe. This is fairly common on older systems where galvanized riser pipe was used, due to repeated start/stop torque. The one thing most people do not realize is if you remove the head or back pressure from an electric pump, the pump will move more water than it is designed to pump due to lack of resistance to flow. This usually results in the pump drawing anywhere from 10% to 20%. above nameplate amps for the pump model in question. For example, if you look at the run amp rating on the pump control box and it states full load amps is 7.5A and your clamp-on ammeter is reading somewhere above 7.5 amps but not over 8 or 9 amps, there is a good chance that the pump is OK, but it had become detached from the discharge pipe where it connected to the pump. Second comment. When you went into the wire color details on the pressure switch terminals you didn't mention that today we are seeing a change in wire color with respect to 240V wiring. Traditionally when wiring a 240V circuit you used a cable with a Black and White current conductors and a third bare ground wire. Today most electrical contractors are installing cable with a Black and Red pair of current conductors and a bare ground wire when the circuit voltage is known to be 240V. So on 240V supply circuits you may see either a Black/White pair, a Black/Red pair, and in some cases even a Black/Black pair. On the well pump side of things you may see Black/White, Black/Red/, or even Black/Black depending on what cable was used. The main take away for both 240V and 120V systems is to make sure the two supply conductors, irrespective of color land on separate contact terminals. The two current carrying wires to the pump land on the remaining screw of each contact pair. Normally it is fairly easy to determine which of the four terminal screws pair to a contact by using an ohmmeter to determine which is which.

Another really good video,

That spider you reached right next to when getting the pressure gauge at the start of the video!!!! NOPE NOPE NOPE!

Milwaukee cordless air pump would be a good investment for you.

Great information thanks for sharing your knowledge!!

Hard to believe people go two days without water because they don’t know how to change a $30 part. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

great video

Nice😎👍

great content , explained very well lol no pun intended

Sean O’Malley and H2Omechanic need to be on a podcast together… just so we can hear the *voice comparison*

Also, if you open your pressure switch and only have 2 wires on one side of the switch, you have a contactor, which can be fouled up like a pressure switch. (Black/Sooty/Worn contacts) Idk how often you run into control boxes but probably 90% of the time if you have one, it's either the overloads have tripped or a bad start/run capacitor or both. I didnt know about the return voltage from testing the lines from the pump. I've always just tested resistance and if the lines were grounded out. :)

Philip, it's not Friday. You're messing with me. 😜

The spider by the tool bag at about 1 min!

Thank you so very much you are always so helpful with your videos Wish you were closer to the Missouri Ozarks To help me with mine

Thanks!

Wow! You are truly amazing! The content you're uploading is so helpful and delivered in way that "Layman's" like myself can understand. Bravo to you! This morning I woke up and noticed lack of pressure in our water. The gauge said 20ish lbs or so. Normally the preasure switch would come on at 40 and build to 60 but today I'm just hearing a buzzing sound for 5-10 seconds and then a click as if it's turning off. My initial thought was bad pump but research is leading me to control box or pressure switch. Any ideas? Thanks! - Todd

Thanks for sharing!

4:20 A bicycle tire pump will work. For the guy on a budget doing a one-time job. It's a work-out but not too bad.

Dang, you’re good!

What is the best brand for a pressure tank. Nice video. Very informative.

Aparently new wiring color code rules are in effect.

You should look at Ridgid's 18v Digital inflator - much smaller and lighter, and would likely do the job nicely.

Thanks for this vid, it was very informative If you have a chance can you troubleshoot 3 wire pumps?

So getting out of the shower two days ago I noticed the water pressure dying off pretty fast. Went to basement and saw breaker was off. I had been doing electrical work day before and thought maybe I had flipped off that breaker by accident and not noticed. I flipped it on and it stayed on. I went to tank and pressure guage was low so I learned from you about pressure. I added air to tank and we saw increased pressure at sink nearby and upstairs and increased on guage. Pump never kicked on however. I did the pressure switch cover trick and tested for power and there was power and no apparent issue with contacts but I didn't get any arcing. (Kind of an aside I'm confounded on is the romex I have going from control box and breaker power never registers with electricity tester but contact points of wires and junction box do test hot when hot. Don't understand why as all other romex I run tests hot when I tap tester to them) back to main issue, sorry, I opened up the control box and looked it over and noticed that the motor capacitor cap (where we have a black dot vs a white dot)was actually 'blown' off the capitol. I kind of figured it was dead seeing that but pushed the cap back on so round toothed clamps thing was re engaged. Still getting nothing from pressure switch. All the while here the pressure switch contacts have been engaged with wire harness leads., fyi. Eventually watching more videos from you and others I realized too that the pressure tank itself was bad as when moved it had water sloshing around inside and did not make a lovely hollowish sound when knocked on. Also fyi the wires were alternating white and black not black one side white other side. Since then I have now replaced the tank and fittings, pressure switch and control box. We couldn't afford the exact same make/model of tank (had maxtrol 20 gallon 125 max psi tank and replaced with water works 32 gallon max 100 psi tank. Control panel is a qd box. I have now watched all your pressure switch, tank and testing videos and gotten to when you use a clamp meter (I now know about this test AND own a clamp meter) on the wire in the pressure switch and I get a amp reading of zero. The wires in the top of well column housing read hot. I have not checked those wires with the clamp meter yet. I'm assuming I need to pull my well pump and troubleshoot, likely replace the pump itself. I am go8ng to watch your well pump troubleshoot now and how to pull a pump. Just a note, I already know I can't afford the higher end pumps, am I ok going with one from home depot?? Not sure what their brand is, but they only have one based on logos on boxes I glanced at. Hoping to hear from you any thoughts and/confirming to best of your ability from my short story if I have correctly diagnosed that it's my well pump.

Hey Philip, would it be OK if I could reach out to you? I have some questions.

I’m pretty sure our pump will need to be replaced in the next few years. If we use a lot of water (hose on for 20min+) it will start to pull higher amps as the water level drops in the well and will kick off on thermal for 2 min then back on for 1min. I can watch it on my power monitor and graph it. Usually keep it off when that happens for about an hour and is fine after. Previous owner had the pressure switch modified to 55-70 psi and I think caused premature wear. Only 1.5gpm well too..

What pump and set depth do you recommend for a 440' deep well with a 115' static water level and 50 gpm output? We plan on having a 5 bdr, 4 bath, with an inground pool and hot tub.

Segregating those colors, hmmmm😅. Nuff said.

I have a brand new 25 gallon per min pump 1 horsepower my well is 138 ft deep how deep should the pump be ?

Do you ever work on shallow wells with the pumps in the basement and well pipe going through the floor?

Hey man, is it possible to call yall/you for a question

have you recovered from covid cool

Pressure tank needs to be monitored. It lost pressure for a reason.

Snakes aren't the problem. It's those damn black spiders you nearly picked up when reaching for your air gauge... 1:01!!! Hate Spiders!!! haha

Why does everything have to be about race? blacks on one side, whites on the other... hahahahahahaha j/k, thanks for the tutorial and explanation on a pressure switch... will come in handy one day I am sure...