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willshak

on 12/18/2007 4:27 PM said the following:
Last night I turned on my water and found there was none. At first I
thought that a pipe froze. Then I go to the pit where my tank is. It
took hours to even get in there since the entry was buried in ice and
snow. In that underground pit is my tank with the pressure switch.
The instant I looked in there I knew there was a big problem. The pit
had over 4 feet of water in it, my bladder tank was sideways more or
less floating as the plastic pipes were still attached. The pressure
switch electrical part was under water (yet the breaker never blew).

I shut off the power and put a sump pump in there and pumped it out.
After it was empty, I put the tank back on it's base, checked all the
piping for breaks (none existed), and thoroughly dried out the
pressure switch. I turned it back on and it worked again. That's
when I noticed a small pinhole leak in the tank blasting against the
wall of the pit.

OK, I need a new tank, but it's going to be a few weeks until I can
afford one. I took some JB Weld and glued a sheetmetal screw into the
hole. I am going to let it dry all day before I turn it back on, and
got some bottled water from a neighbor for the day.
My question is whether this will hold? I know JB Weld is pretty
strong. I scraped all the paint to the bare metal before I applied
the JB Weld. I found a thick screw that threaded in tightly, put the
JB under the head and tightened it. Then I spread the JB all over the
area next to the tank, covering about one inch all the way around the
screw.

Has anyone done this?

PS. The bladder is still fine. I drained all the water before I did
this patch and used a torch to get it totally dry. I released all
the air from the bladder too, not that it was necessary, since the
bladder is in the top of the tank, the leak is in the bottom. I have
since refilled the tank air in the bladder without any air coming out
of the water drain valve, which is still open while the JB dries.

Jim

Many pressure tanks have the bladder in the bottom and it is that which
fills with water, while above the bladder, the tank is filled with the
pressurized air. You may have put the screw through the rubber bladder.
The water may leak out of the bladder under pressure and fill the area
around the bladder, and possibly into the air chamber.

--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
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