Bill was showing me how his well pump short cycles, which is bad.
What I did was run my kitchen sink into a 1 gallon container and time it. Turns out it flows at almost exactly 1 GPM (I'd rather 2.5 or so but it saves water I guess).
Then I went into the basement and made a video of the pressure gauge dropping until the pump kicked on, raised pressure and finally shut off.
The results are:
- Took about 5-1/2 minutes to drop from about 50 psi to 40 psi where the pump turned on
- 90 seconds later, pressure rose back to 60 psi when the pump shut off
Since I caught it mid cycle (about halfway), I'd estimate it would take 11 minutes to go from 60 psi to 40 psi with the sink running. Then the 90 seconds to recharge to 60 psi is still the same. That means every 12.5 minutes my pump turns on and runs for 90 seconds with a 1 GPM flow. Bill's pump seemed to turn on every 15 seconds and run for like 5 seconds or something, which seems way, way too often. Likely the pressure tank bladder air pressure is low. Or zero. Or the pump is vastly oversized compared to the tank. Either way, a good fix would either be to inflate the tank to the proper pressure, or replace it with a larger one like I have.
This well was drilled about 3 years ago and I upgraded to a double size pressure tank. This really helps extend pump life because the pump is less prone to short cycle, and also works nicely when the power is out so you can still flush toilets, wash hands, get water, etc.