On 8/13/2018 6:01 PM, Arlen Holder wrote:
My outdoor water pressure booster pump occasionally won't start,
particularly after doing some irrigation watering.

It never happened before under those circumstances, but it happened twice
in the past week - where letting it sit with the breakers turned off for an
hour and then turning the breakers back on seems to "fix" it temporarily.

The booster pump works for weeks if I don't irrigate - but if I do - the
booster has failed to start twice - once I heard screeching sounds until I
shut the breakers - but this last time I heard nothing.

Then for weeks, it works fine - with normal sounds.

I'm perplexed - but the first thing I'm assuming is that it's heating up
due to bearings - I'm not sure if that's the case - but the screeching wsa
something - even if I don't hear it now.

Do you guys with wells periodically rebuild your water pressure pump?
This one could be as old as from the 80s.


I don't have any experience w/ jet pumps; we're too deep here so
everything is submersible...

But, certainly sounds quite probable is a bearing problem and likely
happens only when you irrigate (so far, the rest is coming) because it's
running nearly if not continuously so doesn't have interval to cool down
between.

Q? is when this happens have you felt for temperature and determined
which bearing(s) are the ones--is it the motor or the pump?

Is there a manual thermal reset on the pump or is it one of the internal
bimetallics? If there's a red reset button, if it had tripped you'd
have to manually reset; if no external reset then it could have tripped
and but would automatically reset once cooled off. If it's getting this
hot that that's happening, it's time...

If there's a local shop, and you can work out the schedule, I'd probably
take it to him and let him do the bearings unless you've got the
toolset; we've got a really good local shop and for something like this
he would in all likelihood be able to get it in/out in an afternoon if
scheduled it. If he couldn't, would likely have a loaner or the well
folks should.

OTOH, if it's all as old as you say may be, there's something to be said
for new and at your leisure rebuild the old one and you've got a spare...

Others answered most of the other regarding pieces-parts; there's no
need for the identical motor down to being GE; form factor, HP and
service rating are the key items...

The first Q? still is to determine whether it's the motor or the pump
with the problem, however.

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