Is Your Lawn Pump Losing Prime?

!±8± Is Your Lawn Pump Losing Prime?

Those of you that have a lawn sprinkler system connected to a pump and well setup may have experienced a problem with your pump losing its' prime. What this means is that the pump has lost the suction of water and now the pump is running dry.

If this problem is not caught quickly, your pump may continue to run dry and burn out the motor or spin off one of the impellers.

Re-priming most pumps is fairly easy. With the pump off, you take a water hose connected to an outside bib and fill up the volute (part of pump that holds water). Then turn the pump back on while continuing to run water into the pump until you hear the sound of the motor starting to smooth out, which usually means the pump is primed back up and lifting water again.

If you take the water off and then the pump does not spit out water within a minute, continue to force water back into the pump until it is lifting water from the well. After your sprinklers have run for a few minutes, turn the pump off and wait a few minutes before turning on again.

What we're doing is checking to see if the pump will hold its' prime. If you can turn the pump back on and it continues to deliver water, then you should be fine. You should check it the next day to see if it is holding the prime for a long period of time.

If after it has sat for several hours, or even just a few minutes and it has lost the prime again, then most likely you have a bad check valve or bad foot valve, depending on what kind of pump and well setup you have.

If you have a shallow well and horizontal pump, then you will need to replace the check valve, which is either a brass or PVC fitting that is usually installed directly before the inlet or suction side of the pump. To remove and replace, you need to cut the PVC pipe free and use a big pipe wrench to loosen the check valve. To replace, simply install back in and glue the pipe back together. Make sure you have the flow the correct way; there are arrows on the check valve which point the direction for the flow of water.

If you have a jet pump, then your foot valve may need to be replaced. This is not as easy as replacing a check valve because it is located on a drop pipe, which is a separate pipe inside and near the bottom of the well. This requires you to remove the casing adapter and then lift up the pipe, which can be 30 Ft to over 100 feet deep! Depending on the particular setup of your drop pipe and foot valve, it may require a few extra steps prior to just pulling the pipe up. This is not an easy task if you are inexperienced. The actually removal and replacement of the foot valve is similar to the check valve, the hardest part is usually getting the drop pipe up.

For homeowners with horizontal pumps and check valves, I encourage you to do it yourself! For those with irrigation system pump and well setups that have foot valves, I would highly recommend hiring an experienced well driller or pump technician from an irrigation company in your area.