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Pump keeps cycling

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tskipper

Starting Member

Posts: 1

1

Friday, July 23rd 2010, 8:38am

Pump keeps cycling

I have a submerged 1 hp pump (85 ft. underground) it is controlled by a pressure switch on a bladder tank. This my only pump and it serves both my yard and my house. My problem is that the drip hoses (Rain Bird, 1/2 in. hoses) are on one zone and the sprinkler heads (Hunter PPM's) are on 3 other zones. On the drip zone and one of the sprinkler zones, my water pump cycled every few minutes as tank pressure dropped. The installer said to keep the pump running continuously. I needed to add more drip line to that zone, and more sprinkler heads to that zone. My yard did not need this extra watering. I have combined the zone with the least sprinkler heads and the drip zone together to form one zone. I think this is wrong because I think it takes too much pressure off the drip lines using sprinklers and drip on one zone. By combining the two zones the pump doesn't keep cycling though. Is there a way to keep the pump running without adding sprinkler heads or drip line?

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

2

Friday, July 23rd 2010, 9:32am

It's up to you to match sprinkler system flow with pump output. You can either rework the drip, or maybe obtain a controller that allows drip zones to be run at the same time the lawn zones are being run. An alternative solution is to add extra pressure tank storage, so that several minutes pass between pump cycles. Also, there are some specialty valves (Cycle Stop Valve is one) that install upstream of the pressure tank and pressure switch, that allow you to run small quantities of water without the pump cycling.

hi.todd

Supreme Member

Posts: 417

Location: Houston, Texas

3

Sunday, July 25th 2010, 7:23pm

You seem to know the deal. when you are running a system off of a pump, one of the main design criteria is to to keep all of the zones or flow rates equal or with in a few gallons per minute demand. After you know what the demand will be, then you pick a pump to handle the demand.

You will also need a pressure relief valve on the pump. I hope you have one. If not you will want to add that to the system. They are cheap.


Good Luck :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: 8o 8o
:thumbup: :thumbsup:

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