On Tue, 8 Jun 2021 10:24:23 -0700, Bob F wrote:
Just turn on a faucet somewhere, and it will cycle on/off as needed.
You don't have to wait for it to happen when you wander by. You could even
have a hose end near the pump and a couple 5 gallon buckets, to measure
how much water comes out of the tank after the pump stops until it
starts again. Fill a bucket, and move the hose to the other, then dump
the first while the 2nd fills. Repeat as needed and keep count. Multiply
by the bucket capacity and you know your usable tank capacity.

With water constantly running I determined that the turn on is 27psi.
The turn off is 37 psi in about a minute and a half (a bit less).

It takes about 15 minutes to cycle with water running.
Cycle time can be from hours to never (with no water running anyway).

BTW, your advice was logical and sound from the start in that I really
didn't need to loosen the upper level (side smaller bolt nut) because having
a 20 pound range is likely better than having a 10 pound range.

With 20 pounds there will be fewer cycles but to tell you the truth, the
wife and kids don't even notice the new situation versus the old one.

Thank you - your help was instrumental in diagnosing & working around the
problem which appears to be an aging water pump that can no longer reach the
previous high pressure set point which was apparently well over 52 psi.


It could be a wearing switch also. You can buy them pretty cheap online
(Not that a cheap one is best) and have it around in case the switch
does decide to fail. It is not a bad investment to be ready for what
could be a very inconvenient failure.

The only switch I would consider is an exact replacement so the price is not
meaningful in terms of what it is that I'm buying. They're about 25 bucks
give or take online which isn't a problem in the least.

I was going to replace the switch & gauge but the switch is more work to
replace than to just leave it there :-) so if it's working, I'm inclined to
leave it alone now (other than to increase the range back to 20 psi).

The gauge isn't working, but no gauge will given the passageways of the pump
housing must be clogged and I don't want to break things trying to fix a
gauge, so I'm inclined to leave that too. :-)

I did have the mechanism at the bottom of the springs on the switch on
my sprinkler system just fall apart once. I replaced it with a spare,
and spent a significant time trying to figure out how to re-assemble the
broken switch. It was quite a puzzle.

And you are indeed welcome. I am glad you got it working.

Thank you very much for your advice. Everything you suggested was sensible.

I don't think the switch is the problem because with the pump running
forever the pressure never increased over 52psi which doesn't really have
anything to do with the switch and I'm told by friends that these pumps can
do well over 52psi (and it must have been high at one point given the set
point prior to this problem).

Do you know what these pumps are capable of in terms of high pressure?