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Restricted pump flow without pressure switch

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howserss

Senior Member

Posts: 18

Location: Florida, Tampabay

1

Thursday, September 13th 2012, 4:31pm

Restricted pump flow without pressure switch

Assuming the pump does not have a pressure switch so it won't cycle,
If you were to run a pump that had a 16 GPM flow at 30 PSI with an open outlet at 1 GPM would it hurt the pump?

The reason I am asking this is my irrigation installer wanted me to bypass the pressure switch and I refused stating it would damage the pump or some other component.
If I am wrong I will bypass it, but I need a second opinion first.

This post has been edited 2 times, last edit by "howserss" (Sep 13th 2012, 5:16pm)

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

2

Thursday, September 13th 2012, 6:23pm

What pump? Make and model number. Describe the well. Depth of well and depth of water in the well.

howserss

Senior Member

Posts: 18

Location: Florida, Tampabay

3

Thursday, September 13th 2012, 9:37pm

Restricted pump flow without pressure switch

Sta-Rite 1.5 HP Jet Pump SNF-L series. 1.25 in 1 inch out. Well has 12 wellpoints in 3 wells 10 feet apart. I believe the well points are stacked. The wells are 35 feet deep, it says on my paperwork it has 15 feet of lift. Does this mean the water is at 15 or 20 feet. The soil is sandy i live in Florida and the recovery rate is slow so thats why I only get 16 GPM. The guy that did the well his family has been doing wells for about 60 years in my area of Florida.
I have a 1 inch main line with 7 zones in a satellite configuration.

This post has been edited 6 times, last edit by "howserss" (Sep 13th 2012, 9:55pm)

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

4

Friday, September 14th 2012, 7:56am

Why is a 16 gpm jet pump going to only be used at 1 gpm? You need some very very good reason for this sort of thing.

howserss

Senior Member

Posts: 18

Location: Florida, Tampabay

5

Friday, September 14th 2012, 1:58pm

They hooked up a drip line to a dedicatd zone without a zone pressure regulator. When I have the pressure switch enabled the pump cycles every 15 seconds.
So I can keep the switch enabled what I did was hook up the drip zone to the MV circuit so it runs with all other zones. This is a work around for now until I find a real solution.
If I hook up a pressure regulator and set it at 20 PSI would it stop the pump from cycling so frequently? The normal zones run at about 45-50 PSI and the pressure switch is set to 35-55 PSI and the pump never cycles on normal zones.

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

6

Friday, September 14th 2012, 8:44pm

Why the drip line? They had to know it fails to match pump flow.

By the way, it is accepted practice to run a drip zone concurrently with other zones.

howserss

Senior Member

Posts: 18

Location: Florida, Tampabay

7

Saturday, September 15th 2012, 8:17am

Yeah I like the idea of running the drip with the other zones in my configuration. I have a pretty small yard.
I just wish I had complete control over which zones it ran with so I could control the length of time it drips. If I didn't have the pump start relay I could configure the MV to only trigger on certain zones.
Right now I am watering in the new sod so I am watering more than I normally would. Maybe I can just put a small switch so I can turn off the drip so it does not run so much for now.
By the way I have the ESP modular. I had the ESP-SMT but it would not operate the pump start relay reliably so I had to send it back. :(

Wet_Boots

Supreme Member

Posts: 4,102

Location: Metro NYC

8

Sunday, September 16th 2012, 5:02am

You could always cobble something together with small relays to get the desired zones to trigger the drip.

Also, anyone who knows the full range of discrete drip emitters might have installed something that better matches the pump, to operate as a standalone zone.

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