Home › No Water From the Well: What to Check, in Order

No Water From the Well: What to Check, in Order

On a private well there is no utility to call and no outage to report. The whole system is yours, which also means the fault list is short.

The short of it

Nothing at the tap on a private well narrows to a short list, and the order matters: power at the breaker, the pressure switch, the pressure tank, the pump itself, and last the water level in the well. Working down that order avoids an unnecessary pump pull.

PumpDepth is a referral service, not a contractor. We connect homeowners with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands. Every state page sets out who licenses plumbers there and where to check, so you can confirm before work begins. We carry out no work, we sell no equipment, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call.

Start with power

A well pump is an electrical appliance on its own circuit, and the commonest cause of no water is that the circuit is off. Check the breaker, and check any separate disconnect switch near the pressure tank — many installations have one and it is easy to knock.

A breaker that trips again immediately is telling you something real. Do not keep resetting it.

Then the pressure switch

The pressure switch is the small box on the pipe near the tank, and it is what tells the pump to run. Its contacts pit and burn over time, and when they fail the pump never starts even though everything else is sound. It is also where a low-pressure cut-off will have tripped if the well ran dry.

The switch sits on live line voltage. Looking at it is reasonable; opening it is a contractor's job.

Then the tank

Check the gauge. Zero pressure with the pump running means the pump is not delivering. Normal pressure at the gauge with no water at the taps means the problem is downstream of the tank, not in the well at all.

The pressure tank page covers what the gauge should read and why.

Then the well itself

If power, switch and tank are all sound, the remaining causes are the pump and the water level. A well that has drawn down below the pump intake produces exactly the same symptom as a failed pump, and the two are told apart by measurement rather than by guessing.

That matters in drought and after heavy irrigation, and it is why a low-yield well is worth understanding before it is worth replacing anything.

On a well, nobody else is going to notice it failing.If the pressure has gone or the pump is cycling, that is worth a call today rather than next week. We route to contractors who work on wells specifically and cover your area, matched on the ZIP code you give, and you are never charged. Nor does it have to be the well; any plumbing work is routed the same way.

Call (888) 493-0912