Water worries..............again

Maybe I should change the concept of my blog  to "plumbing works"  because it always seems that I have water issues. Now I bought this water pump about two months ago, I installed it and initially it seemed to work fine. About 2 days after it would make a weird start stop sound. A continuous clicking; (short cycling) and I didn’t understand why. I figured that it would “work itself out” and  I attributed the  short cycle  to an open pipe. Did my checks; found no leaks on the line and was completely clueless. I assumed “ brand new pump, that's probably how it works.”

The only concern that I had was that the lights would dim and flicker when the pump switched on.

My complacency allowed this to continue for a little while, then I realised that the pump was not coming on at all. (sometimes we create our own problems)

So I got my tools and decided to take a look at the pump.

My process was as follows

• Turn off all water valves coming from the water tank and heading to the household.
• Unscrew unions on the pump and allow water in pump to run off.
• Find clear clean table that close to an electrical outlet and place water pump on table to work. 

The first step I took is to open the pressure switch on the pump. The pressure switch is the little grey box on the side of the pump. When I opened this box, upon closer inspection I noticed that the contacts of the switch had been burnt out. Research lead me to discover the crucial mistake that was made. The failure to properly set the pressure switch on my initial installation caused the pressure switch to burn out. 

Pump with Pressure Switch (grey box)

contacts on right burnt.

  Having realised this, I bought a pressure switch (these switched comes in two types male and female) and installed it.

Finally, once I wired it properly I plugged the pump and VOILA! It began to work.

This time, I was able to set the pressure switch properly so that it wouldn’t happen again. (details I will post in a follow up post.)