No Water

What goes wrong

The usual cause of no water is that the pumps have turned off. This happens if we suffer a power outage (happens ALL THE TIME) and during the outage water enough water gets used (or we have a leak) such that the water pressure drops to zero. The pumps have protection such that they won't run if the pressure gets too low - I know, that sounds wrong. But in practice, the usually happens only if the well runs dry and there is no water to pump. That would burn out the pump.

One alternate problem we have seen is that the pressure regulator gets stuck closed due to lack of use - the house is empty. This seems to fix itself as water gets used - its usually low water pressure, rather than none.

How to fix it - Pumps off

Getting it going again is pretty simple.

1. Walk out to the pump-house. Easiest path is through the dog run, out the back gate and keep walking straight until you get there.

2. At the opening to the shed, you will see a pressure gauge and on either side of it there are two grey boxes. Check the pressure gauge to confirm it shows 0, zero. If it isn't zero, something different is wrong.

3. On the back of each of the 2 boxes is a little metal arm sticking out in an "L" shape. Lift up to twist one of these arms and you will jump as the nearby pumps suddenly turn on. If you keep twisting hard, the pump might turn off, so immediately let go. (If the pump doesn't start, it might have a problem, so try the other one.)

4. You probably felt the little arm jump, too, and should see the pressure gauge immediately jump up to something like 50 psi. You have done it!

5. If it doesn't go like that, something different must be wrong. DO NOT continue to pull up on the little arm as that could keep the pump running while dry and that isn't good.

6. If pulling up on the arm doesn't seem to do anything at all, it might be that the breakers have popped. This doesn't normally happen, so would probably mean the pump has a serious problem and I don't recommend resetting them to try.

✅ DONE!