Pump is Pumping too often?

[ElephantEgo]

I have recently renovated a house and installed a pump (Stiebel Eltron 450 Watt).

 

The pump seems to be coming off and on, even when we are not using the water.

 

Is that normal? Any way to stop that happening? I have checked around and did not find and leaks or such.

 

The water usage on the meter seems to be normal....

 

What can be done to remedy?

[VocalNeal]

Check all the toilets first. The two instances may not be connected? 

[Andrew Dwyer]

Check all the toilets first. The two instances may not be connected? 

I agree, the first check should be to see there is no water running down the back of the bowl, is easily checked and easily resolved by adjusting the ballcock.

Other than this sounds like a leak, if you can isolate any areas, with a shut off valve etc , you can eliminate options.

[albertik]

_{The ballcock on my tank does not provide a positive shutoff and as a result the pump cycles often.}

_{BTW,  Jake R, why do you use a meter on your system?}  Disregard my meter question. I was thinking of my system that uses an inground  H2O system.

Edited June 26, 2019 by albertik
My bad

[sometimewoodworker]

2 hours ago, JakeR said:

I have recently renovated a house and installed a pump (Stiebel Eltron 450 Watt).

 

The pump seems to be coming off and on, even when we are not using the water.

 

Is that normal? Any way to stop that happening? I have checked around and did not find and leaks or such.

No it's not normal.

 

You have one or more of the following 

cracked pipe,

failed or failing joint

a tap or other outlet that is not shutting completely.

 

you may not easily find them until you start shutting of parts or your system as the leak is probably small at the moment.

[Kwasaki]

2 hours ago, JakeR said:

The pump seems to be coming off and on, even when we are not using the water.

I was told our Hitachi water pump will prime itself every now and then when it is left on all the time, I reckon more like minor leaks under pressure but only find a dripping tap outside, fix that but pump primes.

I fitted on/off switches in convenient places.

Our gov water supply is good but not for a power shower.    

[Yinn]

Check this one in the water tank.

[Noji]

Does your expansion tank have an air cushion or provision to add air to it?

It sounds like your tank has no air cushion and therefore the pump immediately builds up enough pressure to shut off, leaks a small amount of water and then recycles back on again.

[Puchaiyank]

Pump only comes on if water is being taken from tank...may be slow leak most any where.

 

Suggest you take a paper towel and check for water collecting on floor under pipes and check every fitting with paper towel to see if wet...took me months in a new rental house to find all the leaks...good luck!

[a10ams]

Do you have a pool? When the pool pump comes on the level in the header tank will drop and the pump will kick in to top it up.   

 

Maybe you could pressure test your system. Not big numbers though as it's plastic pipe.

 

We had a sticky toilet cistern valve once and it allowed a constant barely visible trickle, also worth checking.

[a10ams]

Just had another thought on this, maybe it's been mentioned before, I've just noticed we're on page five of replies and the missus is bursting to go to Makro so I don't have time to read them all.

 

Somewhere in your system there will/should be a non-return valve on the suction side of your pump. We have an underground pump and on the bottom of the pipe that runs into the tank is a non-return valve. This stops the water running back from the house to the tank through the pump. Sometimes a little stone can get into the spring mechanism and stop it from sealing off. Maybe the rubber seal has rotted away. The water will then slowly drain back. The pump will see this loss of pressure on the outlet side and keep topping it up by randomly turning itself on. This is a leak that you won't visually see. These valves are cheap to replace.

 

Replacing the solenoid is another option. It regulates the low pressure the pump kicks in at, and also the higher pressure it kicks out at. If it's a new pump then maybe you can discount this. If it's an old pump then it's worth replacing. Only a few hundred baht as opposed to five figures for a new pump that everyone wants to sell you.

 

Good luck ..... off to Macro.

 

 

[bankruatsteve]

2 minutes ago, a10ams said:

Just had another thought on this, maybe it's been mentioned before, I've just noticed we're on page five of replies and the missus is bursting to go to Makro so I don't have time to read them all.

Actually, this thread is still on P1, but maybe y'all should wait for the OP to get back with results from the suggestions so far.  We could list the other 100 or so possibilities but then there would  be a bunch of superfluous pages.

[masuk]

1 hour ago, Noji said:

Does your expansion tank have an air cushion or provision to add air to it?

It sounds like your tank has no air cushion and therefore the pump immediately builds up enough pressure to  was sufficient,shut off, leaks a small amount of water and then recycles back on again.

I had the same thing happen on the farm.  Sometimes just unscrewing the pressure tank and allowing the water to drain out fixed the problem, but some models also needed some air pumped into the top.

This allows a litre or two to be delivered before the pump cuts in.

[lagavulin1]

Do you have a double system. I mean a line from the meter to the tank feeding the pump AND a bipass which allows you to run directly from the mains? 

If the bipass is not fully closed the pump reacts to pressure fluctuations in the bi pass line. 

Check your tank is being supplied enough. 

My next door neighbour had this problem as did we. 

We installed a valve on the pump outlet. We use bipass except when mains is very low and shutting the exit valve neutralizes pressure variations and shuts the pump up. 

[Pdavies99]

3 hours ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

I agree, the first check should be to see there is no water running down the back of the bowl, is easily checked and easily resolved by adjusting the ballcock.

Other than this sounds like a leak, if you can isolate any areas, with a shut off valve etc , you can eliminate options.

Quite right, most often it is a leak and easy to confirm...fit a shut off valve on the input to the house and if pump stops running, there you are. The only other issues mght be you need to bleed the pump (usually a bleed screw on top of pump) a leaky water tank or a wrongly plumbed system or too high a pressure setting on the pump.

Edited June 26, 2019 by Pdavies99

[travelling wilbury]

Try the obvious first check the non return valve in the pump then the pressure vessel 

[Vacuum]

3 hours ago, Yinn said:

Check this one in the water tank.

That's for not overflowing the water tank, nothing to do with the pump.

[RickFarang]

Yes, it is probably a leak. Had something similar. After some measurements I determined that the lead was about 800 liters a day. Turned out to be a water pipe embedded in a concrete bathroom floor.

 

These can take a long time to find and the water may stay around for months or years causing paint to blister and other unpleasant affects. Find it and fix it as quickly as you can!

[phantomfiddler]

5 hours ago, VocalNeal said:

Check all the toilets first. The two instances may not be connected? 

Spot on ! My bill went from 300 to 3,500 bht per month, all because the old float and diaphragm system was cutting radial channels in the rubber seal. As the float rose it caused jetting velocity of the incoming flow, cutting the channels and causing water to flow 24 hrs per day. Buying the American snap closure models (green and brown package, "Flowmaster" I believe) immediately and permanently solved the problem ????

[sometimewoodworker]

10 minutes ago, phantomfiddler said:

My bill went from 300 to 3,500 bht per month,

I thought my bill was high when it doubled from 40 Baht to 80 Baht????????

[Surasak]

1 hour ago, Vacuum said:

That's for not overflowing the water tank, nothing to do with the pump.

Actually it could be everything to do with the pump. Our water bill shot from 3500B/Month to almost 6000B/Month. The reason  took a lot of finding. It turned out there was a very fine leak in the feed pipe to the toilet tank water cutoff valve, leading to water running into the tank overflow. 

[owenm]

I had a similar problem with a Mitsubishi water pump.. Constantly pumping on-off every 30 seconds or so even when not using anything any water. No leaks, no over running loos.. Turned up to be an adjustment screw under the main cover. Backed the screw off half turn anticlockwise and problem was solved.. 

[ericthai]

4 hours ago, Surasak said:

Actually it could be everything to do with the pump. Our water bill shot from 3500B/Month to almost 6000B/Month. The reason  took a lot of finding. It turned out there was a very fine leak in the feed pipe to the toilet tank water cutoff valve, leading to water running into the tank overflow. 

3500B for water?  Are you supplying the whole village?  Our water bill is no more than 200B

[whaleboneman]

10 hours ago, a10ams said:

Just had another thought on this, maybe it's been mentioned before, I've just noticed we're on page five of replies and the missus is bursting to go to Makro so I don't have time to read them all.

 

Somewhere in your system there will/should be a non-return valve on the suction side of your pump. We have an underground pump and on the bottom of the pipe that runs into the tank is a non-return valve. This stops the water running back from the house to the tank through the pump. Sometimes a little stone can get into the spring mechanism and stop it from sealing off. Maybe the rubber seal has rotted away. The water will then slowly drain back. The pump will see this loss of pressure on the outlet side and keep topping it up by randomly turning itself on. This is a leak that you won't visually see. These valves are cheap to replace.

 

Replacing the solenoid is another option. It regulates the low pressure the pump kicks in at, and also the higher pressure it kicks out at. If it's a new pump then maybe you can discount this. If it's an old pump then it's worth replacing. Only a few hundred baht as opposed to five figures for a new pump that everyone wants to sell you.

 

Good luck ..... off to Macro.

 

 

A pressure switch regulates the cut-in cut-out of the pump. It's not a solenoid.

[whaleboneman]

8 hours ago, Vacuum said:

That's for not overflowing the water tank, nothing to do with the pump.

You shouldn't give advice on this subject.

[UKJASE]

we had similar problem and could never discover why.  in the end i bought a wifi switch for 200 baht from lazada, and now when i am going to need the pump i turn it on using an app on my phone.  when we are done, and at night etc, i turn it off

 

i live alone, so this works fine, for a bigger family it might be a carry on, but at least you can easily turn the pump off at night etc whilst you try to discover what's wrong in the water system

[AgMech Cowboy]

Are all your water lines above ground & viewable? We have had 2 incidents over the past 14 years where lines running under the house started leaking without ever showing any signs. They had to block them and reroute to fix.

 

(We've never seen any ground problems 5-6 yrs later).

Edited June 27, 2019 by AgMech Cowboy

[Yinn]

18 hours ago, Vacuum said:

That's for not overflowing the water tank, nothing to do with the pump.

 

16 hours ago, Surasak said:

Actually it could be everything to do with the pump. Our water bill shot from 3500B/Month to almost 6000B/Month. The reason  took a lot of finding. It turned out there was a very fine leak in the feed pipe to the toilet tank water cutoff valve, leading to water running into the tank overflow. 

 

10 hours ago, whaleboneman said:

You shouldn't give advice on this subject.

 

I am not the technician.

But, at our house the pump every minute. Annoying.

the technician come.

He change that one.

now no problem.

 

[bankruatsteve]

Yah, the ballcock in the toilet tank is probably the most common place for leak.  The poster who said it had nothing to do with the pump obviously mistook the image for the ballcock in the storage tank.

[Fruit Trader]

Inexpensive additions can take a lot of the guesswork out of finding automatic pump problems ....

 

Edited June 27, 2019 by Fruit Trader