Pressure tank losing pressure

What's it mean when the pressure tank
slowly loses pressure when no water is
being run it will lose 20 lbs pressure in
about 15 minutes thanks
 
A faucet or toilet is leaking.
The foot valve is letting water leak back into the well.
A pipe is leaking somewhere you can’t see the water underground.
The tank is leaking or if a bladder tank the bladder is leaking air very slowly; this will end pretty quickly as the tank gets filled with water and is waterlogged.

Check those toilets first. Easiest to fix and easy to not notice the leakage.

Paul
 
This past April I discovered that our pressure tank was weeping. I waited until a summer day and removed the tank, and found that it had a 1" galvanized steel street el, then hard copper pipe, which had caused the galvanized ell to corrode and have 2 holes in it.
I replaced it with a brass one.

Dusty
 
Do you have a house shutoff after the tank? That would allow you to isolate the problem a bit. As mentioned, toilets can keep running slowly enough to be difficult to notice if nothing else gives you a reason to suspect them.
 

Usually if it is the accumulator tank, the pump will be cycling often even when there is no water demand downstream.
Of course a check valve or foot valve upstream of tank will do the cause the same cycling.

20lbs loss in 15 minutes does not sound like a tank problem.
 
If you have a submersible pump, the drop pipe may be corroded through, usually at the thread where the pipe sections join. In my 50 year old system, that has happened 4 times. Pipe from the 70s lasted much longer than the low bid pipe from the orient now frequently in use. Each time the pump needs to get pulled up for pipe replacement the well company puts in a new pump plus a few sections of 21 ft pipe and the cost is now about $2000 for their service. My well is 320 ft deep.

But yes, the well tank bladders do rupture and the tanks do need replacement also. You may have both problems??
 
It's a leak, either a bad toilet valve, a pinhole leak somewhere out of sight, or a check valve letting water back down the well.

A bad bladder will not have ongoing pressure loss. It has a limited air volume, once the air is gone it won't cause pressure drop. It will cause rapid pump cycling.
 
Little off topic but we used to own an older RV park. Originally built in the 40's and added on and added on.

Anyway, every couple years the city would call and tell me "you've got a leak". City utility manager would came out and said it will surface soon. We were next to the dunes (sand) sometimes it did sometimes not, what a pain.

One time she called and said we were filling a swimming pool every day, could not find that leak for a couple of months. I had one meter on the other side of a creek (line underneath), kept a eye on that spot, finally say some movement on the creek bed. Rented a 4" pump to divert the creek and found that they had transitioned from galvanized to PVC right under the creek.

Look for soft spots between the house and well.

Don' miss those days

Dune
 
If there is no water leaking out from the tank, it's not the bladder in the tank! When we had that happen it was the fitting that was screwed into the outside of the pitless adapter, it was cracked from the ground settling. After each time the pump shut off you could hear a hissing noise at the top of the well, I fixed it myself after digging down 7 feet.
 
I should of said I have a spring down in the hollar about 300 yards from the house I had new holding tanks and new pump installed about 8 yrs ago
 
It's a submersible pump inside a 2500 gallon holding tank where would the foot valve be located that's where the problem most likely is
 
We have had both the well pipe leak as you described, and also the line from the well to the house leak, we always replaced the galvanized pipe with the flexible black water line. Corrosion was often in the threaded area of the pipe near the water level in the well. A temporary fix we used at my fathers tenant house was to install a check valve in the line where it came into the house. That prevents the pressure tank from loosing the water pressure back out the leak. This was done on a leaking well to house line so very little water was lost between pump cycles. If it was a leak in the pipe down the well gravity would let water leak out of the vertical pipe to the level of the pipe leak.
 
All the submersible pumps I have installed have a check valve in the top of the pump. If that's the problem you could just install a new check outside of the pump, all the ones I've seen you can't do anything with the check in the pump.
 
(quoted from post at 09:27:15 02/07/21) All the submersible pumps I have installed have a check valve in the top of the pump. If that's the problem you could just install a new check outside of the pump, all the ones I've seen you can't do anything with the check in the pump.

Yep. When I run my new submersible they recommended adding a check valve to the top of the pump as a backup.
 
That's not true the bladder can and does rupture between the top and bottom half's inside the tank BTDT
 
I think for now since its winter I'll put a check valve in line in the basement before the pressure tank would that work
 
If there is a leak down the well, you will get a slug of air every time the pump cycles on.

Which will eventually start coming out the faucets. That will wake you up first thing in the morning!

But it will prove a point, weather the leak is down the well (if it stops the pressure drop) or is after the tank (if it still drops).
 
I shut the valve after the pressure tank and it still drops so that eliminates anything in the house. I have a spring about 300 yds down in the hollar with a submersible pump that's about 8 yrs old
 
(quoted from post at 08:16:02 02/07/21) It's a submersible pump inside a 2500 gallon holding tank where would the foot valve be located that's where the problem most likely is

Well ... a deep subject. I think we may be talking apples and oranges here. By submersible well pump we are talking about a 3 foot long 4" diameter pump that goes down in a well anywhere from 25' and down a few hundred feet or more.

On the other hand, inside a tank could be referring to a submersible style sump pump which are about a foot tall and close to a foot around. One of those could be put in the bottom of a shallow spring a few feet deep and also put inside a tank.

The submersible sump pumps (also used for sewage pumps) don't have a check valve in them but instructions usually say to add one in the line coming out the top. Those sump pumps have an insulated cord coming from it usually with a 3 prong plug.

So what do you have Rick? Give us a holler from the hollar. lol
 

" 300 yds down in the hollar "

That would not be a run of the mill, of the shelf, big box store sump pump to do that.

Pumping up hill 300 yards equals a whole lot of chances the pipe is leaking someplace.

Might be freeze cracked somewhere or a bad joint or a sharp rock has worn thru a spot or it is not deep enough and got cracked by a something running over the pipe or stomped on by cattle???
 

Could be a problem with the pipe. Our farm used to be supplied by water from a shallow windmill pump about 3/8th of a mile away and about a 100' lower in elevation down in the creek bottom going through 1" galvanized pipe up to the cistern by the house. Then the neighboring town put in a pipe line through the yard coming from the next town over. They allowed a meter with a small flow into the cistern with a toilet bowl type shut off in there.

Pipeline company laid a big gas line through there and cut the line. I made them fix it back when done just in case we ever wanted to use it again although I suspect it is probably mostly plugged off.
 
If you have a bladder tank I'd certainly check that first, since they do fail and are pretty easy to check and replace. The guys saying it can't be your tank and you must have a leak somewhere are correct, but it could be a tiny leak.
With a fully functioning tank you probably have to leak 10+ gallons to notice a 20psi drop in pressure. With a waterlogged tank, the pump is still going to cut out at 50 or 60 psi, but with no air cushion, just a few drips of water lost somewhere will probably cause a 20 psi drop.
 

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