Water Pump Rapid Cycle

[Richard and Rhonda]

I had an issue when running on the house pumps that the pump would cycle on and off rapidly, by rapidly I mean on and off, on and off, on and off at less than 1 second intervals. I knew that wasn't right.


I found that the pressure in the bladder on my expansion tank was around 35 psi. I lowered the pressure in the expansion tank to 15 and voila, the cycle time is now around 15 seconds between on and off. Ok, Ok, I cheated, I looked up the instructions on the expansion tank.

The way you check the expansion tank pressure is to turn off all the pumps, and open a faucet. Then you put a standard air gauge on the fitting on the top.

[fulltiming]

Richard, I badly need to do that. The only reason I haven't done it so far is that I will have to remove the aluminum plate that covers the entire bay to access the valve on the bladder. If I could get my hand up in there, I would try to put an extension hose on the valve so I could easily determine the pressure and adjust it. Now that I am certain that it will make a difference, I will get after it.