I have a Goulds Hydro-Pro V60 tank in my house, which is 5 years old. The water has been behaving erratically, and it’s obvious that the well pump is kicking on and off very frequently, almost every time the water is run.

About a month ago I shut off the pump and drained all the water from the system. I measured the pressure on the water tank with a tire gauge, and it read ZERO. My understanding is that the tank should have a few pounds less pressure than the cut-in pressure, which is 30lbs.

I pumped the water tank with air until it was 27lbs, then closed the system and turned the pump on. Things were OK for a little while, but over the last couple weeks things are back to the way they were before, with the pump running often.

Today I drained the system again and checked the pressure in the tank. Again it reads zero. It seems to me that the tank is bad and needs to be replaced. Am I correct, or am I missing something here?

Check the pressure without turning off the system or draining it. If the pressure is zero and no water comes out of the air opening, then you may just have a bad air valve. If water comes out you have a bad tank.

With the system charged, the pressure of the tank matches what the pressure value on the water line says, which was 32lbs. As I tapped the air valve on the tank, some moisture sprayed out. This isn't supposed to happen, correct? It should only be air?

Assuming this tank is shot, what do you think of the Flotec brand sold at Home Depot? It's half the price of the Goulds HydroPro, plus it has a replacable bladder.

I believe that half the price is probably half the quality. Why else would it be so low? Get a good tank and be done with it.

Many times things bought on the cheap are not capable of doing the job they are ment to do pr they fail much sooner, causing you to spend more money on more cheap equipment which costs you MORE! Price is not everything...total value is.

I agree with qhat you're saying about quality, I usually go for the higher end stuff as a rule. But the Goulds lasted only 4 years!

I would qustion the quality of a replaceable bladder tank, but it would depend on what is involved in replacing it. The problem is that if the bladder is "loose" in the tank, it may be easier for it to fail just like this one.

And the next one could last 10 years, or the cheaper one could fail next year. What is the warranty on the tank? And you might check the warranty on your Goulds to see if it is 5 or 10 years, rather than one year.

You said, "Check the pressure without turning off the system or draining it. If the pressure is zero and no water comes out of the air opening, then you may just have a bad air valve."

Checking the pressure without draining the system is always going to result in the same pressure as displayed on the dial gauge on the service line. If it were zero, there's be no water in the house.

The tanks come from the factory charged/pressurized. You have to drain the system completely and THEN check the pressure on the tank.

In any case, water is coming out of the air valve, so the tank is shot.

You are forgetting two things. First there is a diaphragm to separate the air and water, and second they said there was no pressure after they drained the system. If there is no pressure above the diapragm it is essentially pressed against the tank by the water pressure so there is no air to be pressurized to the system pressure, unless the diaphragm is ruptured in that case there will be water at the air fitting and it will be at system pressure. But since there should not be any water there it means the diag\phragm,and tank is bad. Remember there are two situations where the diaphragm tank is ineffective. When there is zero pressure so the tank is completely full of water, and a pressure above the shut off point of the pump so no water can enter the tank. Anything between these two points will cause the tank to perform somewhere from marginally to properly.

He has a bladder tank but... without draining the tank, you measure water pressure, not precharge air pressure.

With a bladder tank there has to be air pressure to just 1-2 psi less than the cut-in switch setting. With a diaphragm tank there has to be air in the tank to be pressurized when the water enters. In checking that air pressure with water in the thank, the air and water pressure will be the same; regardless of the volume of air. The same applies to air over water tanks.



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Then it's still under warranty. You have a year warranty left on it. The bladder is broken.

Goulds and Well-X-Trol are way better than the big box brands.



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Thanks for the help folks. I replaced the tank tonight with a new Well-X-Trol WX220 - nice tank! The system works beautifully now. Got a shower and the pump never kicked on. The old tank had a ruptured bladder.