"Karl Townsend" wrote in message
...
Just got in for lunch. My better half is all out of sorts because we
have no water. A quick look showed its more than circuit breaker,
motor overload, etc.

I remember a trouble shooting guide on the web that somebody on RCM
pointed out. Can't find it right now. Any suggestions?



First thing I usually do is is look for a blown start capacitor in the
controller box, most of these have a fusable link in them these days and so
when they go out it's pretty obvious....

If you do find a bad cap, replace it and go on about finding out if / why
the pump has been short-cycling--usually, you'll find that the tank is
waterlogged for some reason.

Other than that, bad contacts on the pressure switch are fairly common...and
if the switch has a lever on it, then it could simply be that the power went
out overnight and so you'll need to hold the lever down till the system
develops ~30 lbs or so--a pair of vise grips makes a pretty good "handle
extension" for this as the lever is generally too short to provide enough
leverage to comfortably hold in position by hand..

Don't condemn the pump without checking winding continuity ( suggest check
it AT the wellhead--because this eliminates any bad above-ground connections
that would otherwise skew your readings )......you should have continuity
between all three wires and your actual resistance reading is generally
going pretty low--if it's someplace between about 4 and 10 ohms then I would
suspect that the pump windings are probably okay. Also check for shorts to
ground...

Good luck.