Weak Water Pressure Diagnostic FAQs

Electrical power loss or lightning strike caused water pump trouble

No Water Pressure After Electrical Power Loss or Storm or Lightning Strike

Lightning strike damage to well, casing, pump, piping, or wiring

We have 2 wells on our property operating independently with submersible pumps plus 1 additional pump in our 3000 gal sistern.

Our property was hit by lightning and now all in- ground pumps are fried. Well #1 (7 GPM) went dry instantly. We have had our professional pump folks out.

They have replaced all electrical componets in the pump house plus the submersible pump on the 7 gmp well, well #1.

We have replaced all electrical componets in the pump house but not yet the pump on well #2 and still no water from either.

We are hopeful that our insurance will cover the cost of the electrical componets, pump truck and operator time, and drilling a new well(s). Please let me know what your experiences are with lightning killing a well. It's like fracting only by mother nature. (Aug 10, 2012) Dawna

Reply:

Dawna

Yes indeed, lightning strikes can damage or destroy a well pump motor, wiring, controls, even piping or the casing. We've also seen damaged or split well casing and well piping.

We describe this problem in more detail at

LIGHTNING DAMAGE TO PUMP, WELL, ELECTRICAL CONTROLS - one of 13 causes of bad or no water pressure in our article WELL WATER PRESSURE DIAGNOSIS

See LIGHTNING DAMAGE to ELECTRICAL SYSTEM and if lightning strikes are frequent where you live, also see LIGHTNING PROTECTION SYSTEMS 

If the damage was to the well pump wiring see WATER PUMP WIRING REPAIR

If the damage was to the well pump itself, it's possible to determine that by tests of the pump motor through the wiring (for a submersible pump) or to test the motor directly (for an above-ground jet pump).

Also see WATER PUMP DIAGNOSTIC TABLE and this ELECTRIC MOTOR DIAGNOSTIC GUIDE 

No water after an electrical power loss

Hello! I need help! We had a storm 3 days ago where we lost power. Our water was working fine but we didn't use much because we were at work all day long. But yesterday I went to fill a kiddy pool and do dishes and noticed I was losing water pressure.

Now I have no water at all plus my gauge says zero pressure. I first went to the breaker box and it was fine. I did flip the breaker just to reset it but still nothing.

I do have a well and everything should be around 10 years old. Can you please help me? I am hoping it is something we can fix and it's not the well. Can it be the pressure tank or the pressure switch? Thanks in advance! Mitzie (Aug 22, 2015)

Reply: reasons for lost water pressure after an electrical power outage or lightning strike

Damaged pump, wiring, or control: No water after a storm often means that a lightning strike hit a well or power line or that an other electrical disturbance damaged a pump switch or controller.

Once the pump or its wiring or control has been repaired,

see LIGHTNING PROTECTION SYSTEMS 

and also PUMP PROTECTION FROM POWER FLUCTUATIONS - and lightning strike protection

Damaged well casing or pipes: Rarely a lighing strike hits a well casing and causes it to split leading to loss of water (pump runs but no water is delivered in that case)

Loss of well prime: A more common problem that is easy to fix is loss of prime in an aboveground jet pump.

A bad foot valve in the well or check valve in the piping system leaks water back into the well. When you have power the pump cycles on and re-primes the system periodically even though this leak has been ongoing. But during a power loss the re-priming never occurs and you totally lose prime.

Search InspectAPedia.com for "HOW TO PRIME THE WELL" to try fixing this problem using one of several pump priming methods.

Mitzie asked: will a submersible pump lose prime?

Thanks for responding. Do you have to prime a well if the pump is submerged?

Moderator reply: Other post power loss or lightning strike pump or well issues

No, a submersible well pump shouldn't need priming since it's under-water (unless water level in the well falls below the pump's pick-up opening).

In this case the most common storm-related problem is damge to electrical parts but there can also be a problem can be leaks in well piping or damage to a well casing caused by a lightning strikes.

A more subtle loss of water pressure or of a pump not turning on or off when it should can be a combination of power loss with a clogged pressure control switch sensor port or pressure tube.

Sometimes when water is off for a time a clogged pressure switch problem becomes more serious because the system was not turning the pump on and off for a protracted interval. Examples of diagnosis and cure are at

WATER PUMP CONTROL SWITCH DEBRIS CLOGGING FAQs

No water and no pump working following a power failure; resetting the breakes didn't help.

I had a power failure today and now that the power has returned I still don't have water. I reset the breakers just in case with no effect. The pressure gauge next to the switch still says 50psi but no water is coming out of the taps. Never had a problem with this system before.

It is a pumptrol like in your picture. It doesn't have a lever on the side like I've seen in other pictures. Any ideas? - Alex D 8/18/11

Reply:

Alex:

Following a power failure or a lightning strike there are a number of possible sources of well and pump trouble. Starting with the clues in your question.

• As your gauge says your system is at 50 psi but yet you have no water coming out of the taps, I wonder if the pressure gauge (and thus potentially the pressure control switch too) are dirt clogged and not registering pressure changes - try tapping on the gauge to see if it moves; replace a clogged gauge, pressure switch, or mounting pipe nipple or plastic line feeding water pressure to the switch sensor.
  
  OR your pressurer tank air charge is a bit high - it should be 2 psi below the pump pressure control switch CUT-IN pressure (that cut in pressure is usually 20 or 30 or at most 40 psi).
• Have your electrician or other expert check for the presence of voltage at the pump and control switch
• Check for a lightning strike that shorted wiring, burned wiring, or damaged the pump motor - see
  • ELECTRIC MOTOR DIAGNOSTIC GUIDE
  • DMM DIGITAL MULTIMETER HOW TO USE

Lost Water Pressure following an Electrical Power Loss - was it due to a lightning strike?

After a power loss that lasted half a day [my neighbor] ran out of water. When power I was restored the water pressure was only about that of pouring water and would the volume of water rapidly dropped.

I reached down to her water tank and could easily tell it was empty.

I connected a water hose to her outdoor spigot, unplugged the pump and allowed the water to fill her tank. The tank only filled about a quarter full. I opened a faucet to try to allow air to leave the system the tank did not fill any further.

The water pressure was at normal flow after I disconnected the hose. The pressure gauge showed a drop from 60 to 40, with about a minute for recovery to 60. Even though the tank was only a quarter full I thought the problem was resolved only to get a call a few hours later that there was no pressure again

. The tank was empty, with no signs of leaking. Water is filling the tank, it is slow and I am not sure what pressure the system might build as before it only filled to a quarter full.

She has what appears to be a submersible well a hundred feet from the well house. A pipe about 8-10 inches in diameter with a cap bolted on, there is wiring on one side of the pipe. In the well house (below grade) she has a blue tank about 18-24 inches
in diameter and a little over four feet tall.

A pipe comes through the side of the concrete that tees with the pipe that comes up from the side of the bottom of the tank. Just above the tee is the pressure gauge and then the pressure control switch. On the top of the tank is a plug( and I do have teflon tape if I need to remove it).

I have a few ideas from looking at your website but don't want to screw anything up so I decided I should email and see what you think.

Reply:

We were puzzled too. Sometimes a power loss leads to total pressure loss that leads to disclosing a pre-existing defect like crud inside of a pump impeller, a failing foot valve (loses prime in the well), or a failing pressure control. Also some power outages include an
electrical surge or even a lightning strike that can damage or destroy a pump.

But we recommend that you first look for the simplest solution that does not require multiple odd failures to have by chance occurred at once.

Remember that a water pressure tank is never "full" - as it needs to contain an air charge.

First be sure you have an accurate picture of what was happening before the power outage.

Then start by reviewing the normal pump sequence operation and comparing it with what's happening at this home.

Follow up from the reader explained that only 120V was being delivered to a 240V submersible pump because one fuse of a pair had blown. -- This question is answered and explained more fully at WATER PRESSURE LOSS DIAGNOSIS & REPAIR

Thanks to reader EK Woodard for these details.

Also see WATER PUMP PRIMING PROCEDURE

Water pressure loss after electrical power outage - lightning strike & lost well water & lost well prime

Hi,after a power outage that lasted the entire day, I now have no water at all. I'm new to all of this, so please bear with me.

Although, thanks to your very informative site I'm learning. I have a single line jet pump and am not sure what the depth of the well is. I tried to re prime with no success, so had a well person check it out. He spent over an hour adding water, turning the pump on and off, gradually bringing the water and pressure back up to the top.

Right as he was ready to give up it worked, and water was flowing strong out of the faucet. It didn't last long though, and he said there must be a crack or hole in the piping of the well, which is letting air in.

What I don't understand is I had water before the power outage with a supposed cracked or damaged pipe. So since he got the water back up to the top and flowing, why wouldn't it continue and keep the prime since it was before?

He advised that since the well is older (25 years) and the cost to find out what is wrong with it would be $1500 plus the cost of repair, that I would be better off having a new well dug, which is $3800.

I looked into claiming it on my insurance, but was told it had to be caused from a lightning strike, not just a power outage. Is it a possibility that whatever is wrong could have been caused by lightning, and if so, how could it be confirmed? - Valora

Reply: check for bad foot valve and replace it; refer to details of well pump priming procedure, check valves, foot valves

Indeed, Valora, a lightning hit can burn up electrical wiring, controls, pumps, and can even damage plumbing pipes.

But your description sounds as if there was a loss of prime and difficulty re-priming the pump. If the water system has a bad foot valve (located on the bottom of well piping) and power stays off for some time, you are more likely to lose well prime. The proper repair is to pull the well piping and replace the foot valve.

The reason this problem shows up after a power loss is that even though the foot valve may have been leaking for some time, as long as you had electrical power, when the foot valve leaked the dropping pressure at the water tank caused the pump to turn on by itself, restoring water, pressure in the water tank, and prime before so much water was lost that the pump couldn't recover by itself.

But when power was lost for hours, so much water drained back into the well that the well could not re-prime itself when it started again.

See WELL PUMP PRIMING PROCEDURE and also  WELL PIPING CHECK VALVES and  WELL PIPING FOOT VALVES

Lost water pressure after well took a lightning strike, now find sand in the water

we had a lightning strike last night and lost power to the pump. Replaced the pressure switch which was damaged and now the well is pumping a lot of sand in with the water??? - Barb 5/17/12

Reply: look for damaged well casing or well piping

Barb that's a tough one - how might a lightning strike generate sand pickup in well water?

If the water level in the well has dropped, or if the well casing has become damaged, those could explain the phenomenon.

Presuming we're talking about an in-well submersible pump, I figure if the pump itself or its wiring had taken a hit - which often happens with lightning strikes around wells, either the pump would stop entirely, or if it's getting low voltage or wiring is partly grounded it may be pumping, but more slowly or weakly than normal.

Try flushing everything out and running the system again; let us know if water pressure and pump behavior are normal.

Next will be to investigate the well and well casing themselves. On occasion a severe lightning strike might damage the well casing itself - or damage may have already been present but not recognized. A rust hole or split in a well casing can open wide enough to begin to add sand and debris to the water supply.

Nearby blasting can also change the properties of a water well

In the well that served our lab in New York we had excellent water quantity and quality from the time the well was installed in the 1920's until the 1980's when a road crew decided to move the highway.

Local blasting near our well appeared to amend the underground rock cracks and crevices such that our well water suddenly contained debris from the day of blasting onwards to the present.

Pump not working after lightning strike - pump switch makes lights go off

Our water pump pressure switch is in gauged but pump dose not run. When i take a screw driver and pry it apart the light in the well house goes off.

Then as I release or let the points come back together the light comes back on. We had a lightening strike last night and i am sure that has something to do with the action. I wonder if it got the pump motor?

Reply: signs of a seized pump motor from lightning strike damage

Your description suggests that the well pump or its wiring were damaged by a lightning strike. When you force the pressure switch contacts closed you're creating a dead short circuit in the pump wiring that draws so much current that the lights dim or go out.

Watch out: stop doing that! you could start a fire or be shocked or killed.

Watch out: the condition you describe should be tripping a circuit breake or blowing a fuse, so that circuit protection needs to be checked by a licensed electrician.

Nexct you want an electrician to check the wiring and pump motor - some of that can be done without pulling the pump. But most likely the pump or its wiring need to be replaced.

Watch out: for safety, leave electrical power to the pump system off.

Power outage damaged my pump control switch? Now the pump is overheating

My pump was working well before the recent power outage, when the power returned the following day the cut in and cut out settings on the pump had changed and instead they are way lower such that the water literally stops flowing in the house before the pump kicks in.

Also the pump runs longer and has started heating up. Please advise before I start tampering with the settings which I believe should be OK On 2019-01-21 by Phemelo

by (mod) - possibly lost prime due to leaky foot valve, pump motor damaged by overheating

Phem

A power outage would NOT, itself, change the pressure control CUT-IN and CUT-OUT settings. You'll see that those are a mechanical adjustment, described above on this page.

But a power outage can damage a pressure switch, pump wiring, or even the pump itself.

More likely based on your description, you're seeing a common problem that shows up after a power outage: becase the pump power was off for a time there has been a loss of well pump prime.

This happens if there was already a small well line leak. You'd not have noticed it before because as water leaked back into the well (or to somewhere else) the pressure drops and the pump, still primed, runs from time to time, keeping both pressure up in the system and keeping the pump primed.

But during the power outage the pump couldn't come on in time to keep water in the system, so it lost prime.

Repair Sequence

First: try priming the pump to see if that gets your system going again.

See WATER PUMP PRIMING PROCEDURE

If it doesn't then the pump may have been damaged by running "dry". In that case:

Your electrician will check first to see if you have a 240V pump that's getting just 120V or that's getting low voltage.

That's followed by some current draw (amps) checks to see if the pump motor is shot - which as I say can happen from a power surge.

Don't bother trying to change the pressure switch settings. Those are adjustable screws or nuts that would NOT have been changed by a power outage nor surge.

You could try first replacing the entire pressure control switch AND making sure that there is no clog in the tube or pipe that communicates water pressure to the switch.

But frankly if the pump is heating up it sounds as if either the pump is running dry (no water, causing damage) or it's already damaged.