Well Pumps and Pressure Tanks: What You Are Buying, Who Services Them

A well is a hole with a casing in it. What turns it into a water system is the equipment hung in and bolted next to it: a pump, a pressure tank, a switch or controller, and the wire and pipe between them. That equipment is also what fails. The hole will outlast you; the pump will not.

This post explains what each piece is for, so a quote makes sense when it arrives, then lists the pump and supply businesses we could verify as working the Sulphur Springs Valley, using only what their own websites, chamber listings or BBB profiles publish.

Submersible or jet

A jet pump sits above ground and pulls water up. A submersible sits down the well, under the water, and pushes it up. Depth decides which you have, not preference.

Nebraska Extension's guide to private well distribution systems puts the limits plainly: shallow-well jet pumps are used "when the water is less than 25 feet below the surface," and deep-well jets when it is "25 to 250 feet below the surface." A submersible is a pump and motor in one unit, about 3½ inches across and 2 to 3 feet long, needing a casing of at least 4 inches. Far below the frost line, it needs no freeze protection of its own.

On the valley floor, where static water in a drilled well is commonly hundreds of feet down, the submersible is the default. Where you meet jet pumps and small above-ground pressure pumps here is on hauled-water systems, pulling from a storage tank a few feet away; the hauled water versus well post covers that trade.

What the pressure tank is for

The tank does not make pressure. The pump does. The tank stores a few gallons under pressure so the pump does not start every time someone opens a tap, and starts, not run time, are what wear a pump motor out.

Two numbers on a quote are worth understanding:

• Drawdown is the usable water between pump-off and pump-on. It is far smaller than the tank's nominal size. The Nebraska table gives a 42-gallon bladder tank about 5 to 6.5 gallons of usable storage on a 40–60 psi switch.
• Sizing follows the pump, not the house. The rule of thumb in the same guide is tank size equal to four times the pump's flow rate for a bladder tank — a 9 gpm pump wants roughly a 36-gallon tank — and ten times for an old-style galvanized tank with no bladder.

Bladder tanks ship with a factory air charge of about 20 psi and should be set "about 2 psi lower than the pump-on pressure." A tank that has lost its charge, or whose bladder has failed, makes the pump short-cycle: on, off, on, off at the tap. That is the most common pressure-tank complaint and a diagnosis you can make yourself.

Switches and controllers

The simplest system is a mechanical pressure switch, cutting in at 30 or 40 psi and out at 50 or 60. A three-wire submersible adds a control box above ground for the starting capacitor and relay; a two-wire pump has those in the motor.

Constant-pressure systems use a variable frequency drive to speed the pump with demand instead of banging it on and off. Nebraska notes these run longer with fewer starts, use less energy, and need only a 1 to 2 gallon tank. The trade-off is electronics at the wellhead, in a valley with summer lightning and, off grid, an inverter that has to tolerate the drive. Ask about both before saying yes.

Solar pumping

A lot of valley wells are a long way from an SSVEC line, and a solar pump is often the honest answer. The University of Arizona Extension's 2021 bulletin on PV water pumping describes the standard design: PV-direct, no battery, because "it is cheaper to store water than to store energy." The pump runs when the sun is up and fills a tank; the house or the stock draws from the tank.

The sizing logic is worth keeping: about three days of autonomy in storage (1,000 gallons a day means a 3,000-gallon tank), 5 to 6 peak sun hours a day in the Southwest, and 1 psi for every 2.31 feet of elevation, so gravity pressure from a tank is real but modest. The controller boosts current at dawn and dusk and takes a float switch to stop the pump when the tank is full or the well is low.

Solar pumping is not a pressure system. If you want 50 psi at the shower you still need a pressure pump and tank downstream of the storage, a second, smaller item on the same quote.

Who services them in the valley

Everything below is taken from the business's own site, its Willcox Chamber listing, or its BBB profile. We have not rated or ranked them. Call more than one.

Simmons is a supply house whose press coverage describes a contractor, municipal and industrial customer base. Whether it sells across the counter to a landowner we could not confirm; ask before you drive in. The other three come to the well.

When you do not need to call anyone

Short-cycling with a bladder tank: shut the pump off, drain the tank, check the air charge with a tyre gauge against the cut-in pressure. If it holds air at the right number and the problem persists, then call. No water after a storm: check the breaker and the control box before paying for a truck roll. Anything that involves pulling pipe out of a 400-foot well is not a Saturday job, and the rig that does it is what you are paying for.

What we could not confirm

• Whether Simmons Pump & Supply sells to the public or only to contractors. Its coverage describes both.
• Tanner Well Service's base town. Its site lists counties served and a phone number, not an address.
• Any ROC or ADWR licence number for any business here. Verify them yourself.
• Prices. None of these businesses publishes service rates, so none appear here.

The short version

On the valley floor your well pump is a submersible, your pressure tank is sized at roughly four times the pump's gpm, and your controller is a mechanical switch or a variable-speed drive with its own trade-offs. Solar pumping fills a tank and does not make pressure. Four verified businesses: Simmons Pump & Supply in Willcox for supply; Tanner, Triple L and BJ Drilling for installation and repair. Ask for ROC numbers, and file your own pump completion report with ADWR.

Tell us the parcel and the job and a licensed local contractor will call you to quote it.