Water Pressure Booster Pump Q&A-2

Index to all FAQs on water pressure boosting pumps & tanks
Uses of Water Pressure Booster Pumps
Water pressure booster troubleshooting

What Happens if the Water Pressure Booster Pump Tank Has No Air Pressure?

My water pressure booster pump and tank system has no air pressure in the tank: will it work?

Will booster pump works with zero air pressure at tank? On 2018-06-14 by Ihsan

Warning by (mod) - it will work for a while but short cycling will probably damage the pump

If your pump system was designed to work with a pressure tank and it's left with no air charge then your pump will short cycle and ultimately be damaged.

See details at WATER PUMP SHORT CYCLING - home

Some water pumps like GRUNDFOS SCALA 2 PUMP don't use a pressure tank at all. Others use a very small tank mounted on or next to the pump.

Water Pressure Booster Pump Won't Stop

My water pressure booster pump runs constantly and water is coming out brown and pressure is 100 psi

My water pressure booster pump is running flat out, it does not shut off. Water coming from the pipes is now brown. Pressure gauge is showing 100psi. Outside temperature has been -15F for about a week. Water coming into the house 3ft below grade. On 2018-01-09 by Scott

by (mod) - Watch out: very dangerous: turn off the pump and release pressure immediately

Scott

This sounds dangerous to me - TURN OFF the pump. Running at 100 psi risks bursting a pipe or tank that can in turn not just cause a flood but can burst and injure someone.

From the brown water it sounds as if the well is being exhausted and/or a pump pressure control switch is debris clogged and not working properly.

You may be able to find and clear the pressure control switch for the pump, or replace it.

Be sure to see our complete diagnostics at WATER PUMP WONT STOP RUNNING

Water Pressure Booster Pump Won't Start

Why won't my GT20 Water Pressure Booster Pump Turn On?

Water pressure entering booster pump from city line is 75 psi. It's use is for a baseball field. I have a 2hp gourds pump GT20 with relay but no pressure switch. But pump not kicking on? Wiring is correct, checked twice. Working on 240 volts On 2017-06-07 by Sprinkler Doctor

by (mod) - from the Goulds GT Pump Manual 5: reasons the pump won't run,

Doc

Goulds technical manual for the GT Irrigator series pumps gives five reasons that the pump might not run:

1. Motor thermal protector tripped.
2. Open circuit breaker or blown fuse.
3. Impeller binding.
4. Motor improperly wired.
5. Defective motor.

Was it running before you had this problem? If so the thermal reset may have tripped. The Goulds GT pump uses a thermal overload switch (internal) that will automatically re-set after the motor has cooled-down.

If that's not the case I would proceed in these three steps or phases:

1. confirm that there is proper voltage to the motor terminals - and of course that you've wired the pump as per the data tag or instructions
2. disassemble the pump to confirm that the impeller is not jammed or bound-up
3. test the motor itself - see ELECTRIC MOTOR DIAGNOSTIC GUIDE for detailed help
4. replace the motor if it's confirmed to be defective

If you do not have the installation and operation manual for the Goulds irrigation pump, when I've got my set uploaded I will post a link to them here - later this morning.

You can contact the company directly:
Xylem Inc.
2881 East Bayard Street Ext., Seneca Falls, NY 13148
Phone: (866) 325-4210 • Fax: (888) 322-5877
www.gouldswatertechnology.com

Be sure to see our article offering detailed water pump diagnostic steps at WATER PUMP WON'T START

And, Doc, if you do not have the manual for your pump see our WATER PUMP MANUALS page

Water Pressure Booster Pump Cycles On & Off Too Rapidly

Constant pressure inline water pump cycling on-off every 3-4 seconds - is pressure tank pressure too high?

I had a constant pressure inline water pump professionally installed in the basement of my single story home. Incoming pressure is around 30psi; the pump is set-up to supply the outgoing water to the house around 60psi. During demand, the pump cycles on for 3-4 seconds and stops for 3-4 seconds, etc.

When the pump stops, a single 'clunk/thud' type noise can be heard behind the basement wall where the water pipe enters the house. Currently the water pressure TANK shows 54psi. I recall my plumber telling the tank should be around 42psi (+/- 2).

Question is: could the noise I'm hearing be caused by the pressure tank having too high pressure? Also worth noting, the demand from my irrigation system has the pump running steady for the duration of an irrigation zone -- the pressure maintains a constant 60psi. But there is no 'clunk/thud' when the system cycles to the next zone. On 2018-10-29 by Brett -

by (mod) - review the pump manufacturer's instructions about pressure tanks, pressure settings, pump cycling con trols

Brett

Let's start with a careful review of the specific pump brand and model and thence its installation instructions.

If you installed a pump that is designed specifically to work *without* a pressure tank, and as you have a pressure tank installed, that could be causing the trouble you describe.

Check that the air pre-charge in the tank is 2 psi below the pressure at which your pump turns on.

You can find our detailed diagnostics for this kind of issue at WATER PUMP SHORT CYCLING - home

by Brett

I have the Little Giant In-Line CP, Model # 25LGIL1100N4.

Little Giant pumps (Franklin Electric) website is littlegiant.com -

With that info, it's pretty easy to find the install diagram. Plumber's design matched the diagram pretty closely. He added a bypass to be able to go back to a non-pump-assisted flow.

First, thank you for the reply.

I appreciate your time and willingness to help.
The pump is a Little Giant CP. http://littlegiant.com/products/water-systems/constant-pressureboosting-systems/inline-cp/
Model # : 25LGIL1100N4

Above is a picture of the Install instructions which the plumber followed pretty well from what I can tell...
<<i'm having trouble getting a menu to appear after choosing "add image" >>

...but you can find the installation PDF pretty easily by Googling "little giant constant pressure" and looking for the PDF, "Constant Pressure System -- Little Giant Pump"

Followup by (mod) - are you missing the small pressure tank required for the Little Giant Pump?

Brett

re your question about why during demand, your water pressure pump cycles on for 3-4 seconds and stops for 3-4 seconds,

That sounds as if you may be missing a pressure tank - on the system or there could be an obstruction in the outlet piping.

Here is what the pump manual tells us:

The Inline System needs a small pressure tank placed on the pump outlet to maintain constant pressure.

The tank supplies water while the pump ramps up to speed and in circumstances where only a small amount of water is required for a short period of time. In addition, the tank prevents water hammer by acting as a system buffer.

This buffer also helps to prevent pressure spikes when there is a sudden change in demand. For 12 gpm (45 lpm) flow or greater, minimum pressure tank size is 4 gallons (15 L); for 12 gpm (45 lpm) flow, minimum pressure tank size is 2 gallons (7.5 L).

Pressure Tank Pre-charge (PSI) The pressure tank pre-charge setting should be 70% of the system pressure sensor setting as indicated in the preceeding table. - see the IO Manual table on page 3.

If you don't have the IO manual for your pump you can obtain one from

• Franklin Electric 9255 Coverdale Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46809 Tel: 260.824.2900 Fax: 260.824.2909 www.franklinwater.com
  
  or at
  
  FRANKLIN ELECTRIC INLINE system CONSTANT PRESSURE SYSTEM OWNERS MANUAL [PDF] link as above, retrieved 2018/10/30, original source: http://littlegiant.com/media/130617/225883101.pdf

Use a Pressure Booster Pump to Improve Water From Rooftop Water Tank?

Can I use a water pressure booster pump for delivering water in Columbia?

Dear Plumbers,

First of all thank you for your interest. I live in Colombia and in a rural part to boot.

Everyone here has a water tank for reserve in case there is no water due to a line break or some other problem. Most people have their tank on top of their house which is gravity fed into the home. In my case we have 2, 1100L tanks which I would like hooked up with a pump to pressure our house.

I prefer this to building a huge column strong enough to support it.

The thing is that with gravity pressure its not nearly enough to reach the 20PSI needed to turn on the water heater.

Can I have a pump between the main line that enters the property and the reserve tanks, set so that when there is a drop of pressure or a loss of water all together we still have something like 40PSI?

We also don't want to just run a pump for our water pressure needs 24/7. Really that increased water pressure is needed for taking a shower and thats it. The rest of the time anything is better than nothing.

Here they sell JET pumps as well as the membrane style pumps, but I don't know what is best for me or what size tank/power of pump.

All our water lines are 1/2in and are located close to the main tanks if that makes a difference. On 2017-05-23 by Jack

by (mod) -

Jack

It's perfectly reasonable to use a pressure boosting system to do what you want. After all, plenty of people also are pumping water out of a ground level or below ground cistern or tanaka that collects rainwater.

In Mexico I've installed the GRUNDFOS SCALA 2 PUMP for exactly that purpose. A rooftop tank is filled off and on when the city has water available for a neighborhood, and the building occupants were fine for decades with simple gravity fed water pressure from a rooftop tank except for plumbing on the topmost floor that was nearly unusable due to the very weak flow.

But when we needed to install water treatment equipment for filtration and sanitation and additional equipment to provider tankless hot water we needed more pressure. That gave uniform pressure throughout the building.

The new Grundfos SCALA2 will give you the pressure you want provided you're not lifting the water too many stories up.

Here's a photo of the system as we were installing it:

When the plumbing work was complete the builder added a roof and enclosing walls to protect the equipment.

More information is at our topic home page: WATER PRESSURE BOOSTER PUMP

and also, WATER PUMP VARIABLE FREQUENCY / VARIABLE SPEED DRIVE (VFDs)

Pressure sensitive or "tankless" pressure booster pumps are widely used in my area of Mexico where we just installed one.

For a complete guide to this question see

MUNICIPAL WATER PRESSURE IMPROVEMENT

and

WELL WATER PRESSURE IMPROVEMENT

Water Pressure Booster Pump to Improve Slow Fixtures?

Can I use a water pressure booster pump to speed my toilet refill time?

Liked this article. I have one query, hope you can solve this.

My building is of 4 floors and there is a tank on the top.

On 3rd floor, my flush tank takes 10 min to refill.

What should I do to make it refill in 10 seconds only? Do I need to use some pressure pump? Please provide solution. Plz reply your solution on email ID : harsh.bafna@transformsolution.net. It will be very helpful On 2018-04-16 by Harsh Bafna

by (mod) -

Harsh

As your 3rd floor toilet is 2 floors under the water tank I suspect that the problem is not water pressure in the system but a bad toilet fill valve.

Often a toilet fill valve can become clogged with minerals or debris, or the small valve and riser that feed water to the toilet could be blocked.

I would start by replacing those components. Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there.

Hold off on adding a pressure booster for now.

However if your building water supply is from a rooftop water tank, then yes, see USE WATER PRESSURE BOOSTER PUMP TO IMPROVE ROOFTOP WATER TANK SYSTEM PRESSURE

Water Pressure & Booster Pumps in Tall Buildings / High Rises

Our water pressure booster in a 7 story building is causing banging jumping pipes and wild pressure swings

We have a pressure booster package installed in the basement of a 7 story building with a diaphragm type hydro-accumulator tank installed on the top floor to keep the size down.

The piping for the tank is 1-1/2" & connects from the tank to the 6" loop for the 7th floor. Occasionally the piping between the tank & the loop jumps drastically & will swing back & forth in the cradle mounts for a moment.

It is odd because it will sometimes do this when the booster pump isn't even running, sometimes it will do it after the booster pump has been on for a few minutes & sometimes it will do it while the booster is completely off.

The booster is a good system with check valves installed correctly at each of the 3 pumps on the station. It's almost like extreme hammering, but way more than anything I've ever seen. What could be causing this?

The cut-in pressure for the top floor is 40 PSI & the initial fill on the tank is 35 psi. Any idea what is causing the piping to swing & jump wildly at odd times? On 2017-06-02 by Dazed

by (mod) - fixing jumping pipes usually means correcting water hammer

Daze

Jumping pipes can certainly occur when a water pump starts or stops - a notorious source of leaks. But I agree with what I infer from your comments that looking into water hammer controls might help - along with taking care to secure the pipes against movement.

See WATER HAMMER NOISE DIAGNOSE & CURE

Can an Individual Flat Owner Put in Their Own Water Pressure Booster Pump?

Can one flat owner drawing water from a common water tank instal a booster pump for his water needs ? On 2018-08-28 by Maurice Shukla

by (mod) -

Can - sure. Permitted or "may" - (to be picky about language) - probably, though you may find a dispute with your other flat owners on water usage and on who pays the water bill.

Be warned that depending on where you live, use of a private water pressure booster on a municipal water system may not be permitted.

Use Water Pressure Booster to Improve Pressure in Watering or Irrigating Systems

Distant zones in landscape watering system don't get enough pressure

I have a 1hp, 950 gph shallow water pump with a 30/50 pressure switch and tank that I am using to supply water from my pond to my landscaping.

The watering zones that are closest to the pump are working fine. But, as the zones get further away from the pump, the water pressure decreases.

I'm sure some of this is due to friction from the irrigation piping and tubing. Can I put a pump inline between the current pump and the zones that are located further away to increase my water pressure to the sprinklers in these zones>? If so, what type of pump should I look for? On 2017-05-30 by Mark

by (mod) - better way to deliver pond water for landscaping

Mark,

That's a 15 gpm flow rate from your well - which should be adequate for lots of outdoor uses. But we can't confuse flow rate at the well with

- the pump's output rate or capacity in gpm

- the effect of restrictions in the piping system: filters, controls, pipe diameters, lengths, elbows, sprinkler heads

Yes you could add a pressure tank and booster pump or a simple pressure-sensitive booster pump like the new Grundfos SCALA2

See WATER PUMP VARIABLE FREQUENCY / VARIABLE SPEED DRIVE (VFDs) for details.

There's something you could try first - avoiding running wires out to whoknowswhere.

What about installing some control valves at the heads of the closest sprinkler zones so that you can partly close them, slowing the water volume into those zones and giving more water to the more distant zones?

That's simpler and cheaper even than installing pressure regulators at the zone heads - another alternative.