A little maintenance will take your pressure tank a long way

If you have a well, there’s a pressure tank in your basement or crawl space that’s essential in providing the fresh water you drink and use to wash. But, if you’re like many people here in Northern Illinois, you seldom give that pressure tank a passing thought. If something goes wrong with your pressure tank, however, it could quickly come to the forefront of your attention.

If you walk past the pressure tank, also known as a water tank or a storage tank, often enough without ensuring that it is serviced regularly, eventually you will have a problem. The water tank requires annual maintenance. If the storage tank isn’t serviced annually, not only is the pressure tank at risk but your water pump is at risk, as well.

Inside the water tank is a rubber bladder. A certain amount of air pressure is required in the tank to make sure the pump doesn’t start to short cycle.  That would force the pump to start and stop repeatedly and will burn out the pump prematurely. In the meantime, without adequate air pressure inside, the water tank bladder is stretched in ways it’s not designed to stretch. Often it tears. If that happens, the storage tank is ruined.

Properly maintained, a storage tank can last 25 years or more, though they’re generally warranted for five years. Without proper maintenance, if the air charge in the tank drops significantly, the water tank bladder can stretch and rupture and will likely take the pump with it.

It sometimes seems that pressure tanks that aren’t serviced regularly last just longer than their five-year warranty. At McHenry Water Well & Pump, we install Well-X-Trol brand pressure tanks. Well-X-Trol tanks come with a seven-year warranty. The longer warranty is an indication of the superior quality of a Well-X-Trol tank.

Well-X-Trol water tanks are made with heavier gauge metal that has better constructed seams. They also have heavier bladders that are more durable and more securely attached. But, the goal isn’t that your pressure tank will last for only five years or seven; the goal is for your storage tank to last 25 years or more. With regular maintenance, there is a good chance that it will.