[ngregory94522]

I need someone to help me understand where I am going off the rails. I thought I knew what I was doing, but I'm stumped.

Let me describe the system...

I have a residential well/water system. The well has a pump down in the well, that pumps water from underground into a Captive Air tank, and thence into a ground-level 4000 gallon holding tank. I don't know the depth of the well, but it isn't relevant.

Water is drawn from the holding tank, through a two stage water filter, into a jet/pressure pump, then into another Captive Air tank, which then feeds the residential water system. The tank is pressured to 40 PSI, and operates at 40-65 PSI. All has worked very well for many years. Until the Jacuzzi brand pump failed.

Since much of the system here was Sears, including the Captive Air tanks, etc., I picked up a Sears 390.2522 Craftsman Professional "Hydroglass" convertible Deep Well Jet Pump, and inserted it in place of the Jacuzzi. It is rated at 40-60 PSI, and 1 HP, same as the Jacuzzi was.

Since the pump is drawing water from the ground-level tank instead of deep below ground, I did not connect the Jet system. I plugged the Jet output and connected the inlet and discharge lines, just as the Jacuzzi had been before it. It is installed essentially identical to the way the Jacuzzi had been, and I even used a new check valve on the inlet side, as the old one was leaking a bit, probably causing the old pump to run excessively, and perhaps even contributing to it's demise.

All is working fine except for one thing. The new pump will not make it's rated pressure. If I adjust the pressure switch for 25-40 PSI start/stop it works just fine, except that residential water pressure is too low. It is low enough that it is quite noticeable when taking a shower. It's workable, but not like it should be. I guess I could live with it, but it seems just too low to be normal. (I like a good, vigorous shower, and this just isn't up to snuff.)

Under full flow, the pressure hovers around 36-38 PSI instead of the 55-60 PSI the Jacuzzi delivered. If I adjust the pressure switch higher than about 42 PSI, the pump simply runs forever, never reaching a cut-off pressure.

I disassembled the pump housing to inspect the impeller and seals, and all looks perfect. But nonetheless, the pressure is low.

While I had the system down, I checked and adjusted the pressure in the Captive Air Tank to 40 PSI according to instructions. The tank was not completely flat, but had lost pressure no doubt due to years of neglect so I corrected it.

When I encountered problems I lowered the tank pressure to be more in line with that of the pump, (abt 30 PSI) and all seems fine, albeit at a lower pressure than I expect.

Perhaps the motor is running too slow (it is wired for 220V and served by a 220V feed) but it sounds normal. Possibly there is an internal leak within the pump and it just allows too much water get by the impeller. But when I inspected it, it seemed OK.

My only other thought is that somehow the pump wants the "feedback" of some output being fed back into the suction side via the "Jet" in order to produce full pressure. But the Jacuzzi did not have that, and I thought I understood that was only needed to bring water up from below ground. I thought I understood well how that all worked, and I didn't need it, since water flows into the pump easily from the ground-level tanks. Feeding water back into the pump via the Jet seems intuitively counter-productive.

Am I wrong? As I say, the Jacuzzi had the jet output plugged and easily made 65 PSI cutoff pressure, and it was rated identically to the Craftsman, in terms of flow, pressure, Horsepower and RPM rating.

I see from searching the forum that dkellogg3 posted he was using this pump at 62 PSI cutoff without problems, but mine won't exceed 42 PSI no matter what I try. I infer he is using the Jet feedback, but......

Any thoughts or suggestions from those here would be most welcome. In other words, H.E.L.P.......

Thanks,
Nathan

P.S. If this pump is just a POS and I should return it and put in a better one, what do the experts recommend?