Electric Timer for a Well

Your well pump apparently is able to pump the water up out of the well FASTER than the water can replenish the well shaft. Running it dry is not good, hard on the pump and it draws in sediment when it is real low.

Re-drilling the well for better recovery is the smart thing to do however, you can MAXIMIZE this well's capacity by choking down the line coming IN from the well but then ADD 2 or 3 extra large capacity X-Trol pressure tanks in your basement and the same for your other family. Can we assume they have another dwelling and share your well?

They must also have 2 or 3 extra large pressure tanks. The more tanks, the more storage and smoother usage you'll have. Again, choke down the supply line from the well pump so it can't pump out faster than the well can recover.

Please tell us what well is? what size of well is? And How deep of well is?

In general you can you submersible pump with floating switch, but it is expensive.

Good luck.

Don't use a power washer!

What is the well flow i.e. how many gallons per minute is the well producing.

Thanks for all the input. There my be many ways to solve my well capacity, but I thought using an electric timer would be the least costly. I will be using two 60-80gal water tanks; one for each dwelling(2). I just want to limit the time the well pump runs so that it doesn't drop the water below the well pump. The timer will need to function fast enough to keep the water tanks pressure within a usable range(30-40lbs) but not so fast that the water in the well drops to low. I think the power washer was used for about 55min before it ran out of water and the well recovered within 30min. I guess it would help if I know the depth of the water surface, the depth of the pump which then I could tell the volume of water that could be pumped out. In fact this whole plan is a backup in case I do have a problem. I guess I need to do a little more investigating.

Yes, Electric timer is the lowest cost, but not the best economic way.

The price of 2 timers is aprox. 100 USD. And electric fee for interrupted operation of your pump, and you have to readjust the time of timer for dry and rainly season,...

I think the best way is drilling new well and use submersible pump for 2 families.

Isn't 60-80 gal water tank just a little small. I have a 100 gal in my Toy Hauler. Most homes out here that run off of wells usually have 1500 gal reservoir tanks. For two homes, I would put at least a 2500 gal tank, then you'll have all the recovery time you need to replenish the tanks and not needlessly overwork the well pump. Also, depending of the height of the tank and its elevation in relation to the homes you can take advantage of the pressure created by gravity and a much smaller pump. Instead of a timer, just use a simple low-level float switch.

If you really want to shut the well down when the water runs out just install a flow switch inline on the main. hook this in series with the pressure switch and Voila! when the water stops pumping the flow switch shuts off the pump.

go to your nearest Myers pump dealer and ask for the "single phase pump protectors SPP"

they monitor the power factor of the motor and shut down the pump when water is low then restart based on a prestet timer.

I toss in my 2 cents worth with an alternative solution. In my part of Florida we have good wells, but the water has a bad sulphur smell. The solution used is to install a aeration tank that allows the odor to dissipate before being fed into the household water lines. The same setup will supply a reservoir to allow your well to recover. I agree that you should choke the well back so it doesn't run completely dry. It is not a good thing to run the pump drry and strange things happen in both oil wells and water wells when you expect it the least.

Water well-well pump-pressure tank--250 gallon aeration tank w/float switch--secondary pump to the house.

Working on the downhole part of a well is like building a ship in a bottle. It's just that the bottle in this case is painted black and the neck is a few hundred...or thousand feet long.

I've got a simple Melinor timer for a faucet that will allow flow for two minutes and shut down for six. This is designed for sprinkler use but it will keep you from draining the well when you're using your pressure washer.

The other poster talking about the well pump protector has the best solution. More expensive though.

The next in line in order of expense is to increase your pressure tank capacity as has been suggested, but you need to get the pump protector in place first.

The most expensive but probably the best solution would be to drill another, hopefully better, well.

From one well user to another, good luck....

when you're using your pressure washer.

Sell pressure washer...buy broom...prob solved.

I experienced a problem like this a number of years back on a single family house a contractor had built for me. I didnt have a power washer, but a large garden to water in the summertime. I ran on to the situation you have early on. While the timer is one solution to the problem of water usage I dont believe it is the best. I ultimately installed a water storage tank (in my basement) with pressure switch in line with the well pump and a flow limiting orifice in the tank discharge. Low pressure at the storage tank activated the well pump. Perhaps a similar system would work in your case. Since you have two users, the system is a bit more complex, but if the storage tanks are large enough you might get by. Btw, after installation of a flow limiting orifice on the system I had no further problems.

Just as an aside, how long ago was the well drilled and developed? If the well was recently drilled this type of issue can occur early on and will clear itself up. Sometimes, sediment will break through the sandpack and muddy up the water. On the other hand, if the well has been in service for a long while, it is sometime worthwhile to use a "surge block" to re-develop the well. This can be done by the driller and should not be too expensive.

What a great web site! I just found this web site a few days ago and in the last couple of days have gotten more info than sites that I have contacted for months. Thanks for all the help. Many good sugestions and opened up alot of solutions that I would never had thought of. Again thanks!

Having lived with a similar situation for nearly 30 years may I offer a few suggestions. First thing you need to do is to find out who owns the water rights to the water you are using. Everything may be fine between you and the other user at this time, but what happens when one of you sells his place? It will eventually happen and now is the time to get a written agreement between the two of you as to who has how much of the water that is available and how will expenses be paid when maintenance is required. I unfortunately know from experience and an expensive law suit that lasted over 10 years that only the lawyers profited from.

Once this is taken care of you can turn your attention to fixing the problem. As previously stated the first and best safeguard is to install a safety switch on the well pump to prevent cavitation. It will cost a little money but no-ware near as much as pulling the old pump and replacing it. These units monitor the current draw of the pump and will shut the pump off for a predetermined time if they detect a drop in current which would indicate a reduced load on the pump, cavitation.

It might be possible to lower the pump in the well. This will give you a greater reservoir in the well and extend the amount of water you can pump out before the water level is below the pump. I might add that it is rather rare that the pump isn't placed as low in the well initially as possible tho the well I was on was 1742' deep so we had that option.

In some cases the well can be perforated to increase the recovery rate. A couple of methods that are used are filling the well with dry ice and letting the resulting frozen water open up fusions in the rock in hopes of increasing the recovery rate. Another way is to run rippers up the casing slicing holes at different levels hoping to get more water flow. Holes are sometimes blown through the casing using a special device that is lowered into the hole at predetermined depths. Each method has it's pluses and minuses. The one thing they have in common is that it might not work and that the recovery rate could actually decrease or stop all together.

A new well, as suggested, does not guarantee you will get more water than the one you now have. Also, I know of no well driller that will drop a bit into someone else's well, even their own. The reason for this is that there is too much of a chance that the drill will get stuck in the hole due to changing and shifting of the earth from the time the well was first drilled.

As suggested previously, a larger storage facility for each user would be the preferable way to go. This would be a cistern of 1000 to 2000 gal. capacity for each user. Each user would have his own in-house pump and storage tank that would pump the water that he used from his cistern. Each cistern would be fed from the well by the well pump and controlled by a float switch in the cistern. This type of system allows each user a back-up supply of water for at least a couple of days in emergencies and provides means to regulate total usage if necessary. It also provides a source of water for fire purposes.

My apologies for the long-winded answer.

I'm in the same boat. I have a 1500 gallon cistern that I want to keep filled and all I need is a timer that will run for 3-4 minutes every 10-15 minutes. It needs to be a 220 timer. I can't find one that will work on that time scale. Any ideas?