CountryByNet.com Forums :: question on new well system

I'm going to try and control myself here so I don't sound too cynical,

but after spending YEARS in the water supply business.....that's pumps from teeny-tiny to thousands of HP.... it still AMAZES

me how many ways have been devised to keep from doing the right thing where pump installations are concerned. YES, I KNOW that the pump dealers are battling the price-shopping public, and YES, I KNOW that the public has little or no appreciation for well-engineered and well installed pumping systems if the cost is six cents higher than the other guy; but the fact is that: "You gits whut yew pays fer". Tiny storage tanks are the pits. There is not enough capacity to iron out the fluctuations in pressure from starts and stops, and they cause the pump to cycle just that much more. Variable speed pumps are fine.......for municipal customers and places where HUGE variations in flow must be accounted for and there is no space for a hydro-pneumatic tank. Why anyone would use one in a domestic setup is beyond me.......except for price........to avoid buying a decent sized tank. The other thing is that so many homeowners will drill where THEY want to drill and not where the tank and pump should rightly go. If a proper location is chosen to begin with, a large tank is not a problem, but heck, WHY PLAN ANYTHING when you can just slop it in.

Landscape watering is a big problem for domestic water systems because the instantaneous flow is so much higher than the normal domestic use, and there is often a high pressure requirement for big sprinklers and THAT must be dealt with by using pressure regulators or the dishwasher valves will be slamming.

Good-sized residences with lots of lawns need to have the pump sized for landscape watering FIRST, and the domestic use secondarily. Most good sprinkler timers have a pump "on" circuit that will keep the well pump from cycling while landscape irrigation is in progress, and that's a good way to set things up.

Modern technology is nice; and I'm a firm believer in using what works the best. What you have to keep in mind, however, is that well and pump systems are VERY LONG TERM when compared to other consumer goods you might buy. The pump will have to deliver thousands and thousands of acre feet of water over it's useful life, and will be responding to literally hundreds of thousands of "ON" clicks of that pressure switch. It isn't a bit unusual for a submersible pump to last twenty years if the water is decent and there is no sand coming into the well. Do you think you can expect a constant-running variable flow unit to go that distance? How many bladder tanks will you buy in twenty years? I often went into pump rooms ....or looked at outdoor locations which had hydro-oneumatic pressure tanks with the destination dealer's name still showing on the side of the galvanized tank that was shipped by TRAIN in some cases; thirty od forty years ago. It was like a page of HISTORY, and a testament to a job well engineered and well done. In those cases the first two words the customer usually said were: "I need......." instead of: "How much......."

The equipment that is available for domestic well installations today is designed to reduce INSTALLATION TIME AND COST by having ONE FITTING do several jobs, and enabling the crew to get done quicker and do five more jobs that same day instead of hanging around for cool-aid and cookies from ma and pa while they finished up the many details on a typical designed-from-the-ground-up pump installation, and maybe got back to the shop by four o'clock. By furnishing a cut-and-dried one-size-fits-all type of water system, the dealer can cut costs and maybe get the job. The system may not exactly fit the jobsite, but who cares when price is the main consideration.

CJDave

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