No Water From Your Well — Pump Repair and Emergency Service

Check these four things first

1. 1
   Is the breaker for the well pump tripped? Reset it once. If it trips again immediately, stop and call — something is drawing current it shouldn't.
2. 2
   What does the pressure gauge on the tank read? Zero, stuck, or climbing and dropping straight back down each tell a different story.
3. 3
   Is it the whole house or one fixture? One fixture is a plumbing problem, not a well problem.
4. 4
   Is the water cloudy, sandy, or spitting air? If so, stop using it and call before you run the pump any further.

Tell us what the gauge reads when you call and we'll usually know what we're bringing before we get there.

What "no water" usually turns out to be

Roughly cheapest to most expensive — and that's the order we check them:

• A tripped breaker or a blown fuse.
• A failed pressure switch — the small box on the tank tee that tells the pump to run. Contacts burn and stick.
• A waterlogged pressure tank — the air charge is gone, so the pump kicks on and off every few seconds and eventually gives up.
• A bad splice or damaged wire between the panel, the switch and the pump.
• On a three-wire submersible, a failed control box or capacitor.
• A frozen line or a frozen pressure switch in winter — common here.
• A dropped drop-pipe or a failed check valve.
• A well that's been pumped down faster than it recovers, which looks like a pump failure and isn't.
• A burnt-out pump motor. Last on the list because it's last in frequency.

The one thing we won't do

We don't pull a pump to find out whether the pump is the problem. Pulling a good pump is a wasted day and a wasted invoice. Amp draw, voltage at the switch and the behaviour at the gauge tell you most of it from the basement. We diagnose first, and we only pull a pump when we've ruled out everything above ground.

If your water suddenly looks or smells wrong

Sand or grit points at the well itself, not the pump. Air points at a leak on the suction side or a low water level. Sudden cloudiness after heavy rain can mean surface water is getting in somewhere it shouldn't — and that is a well-structure problem, not a pump problem. See our well water chlorination page and our well water testing page.

Winter

Winter in Sussex County brings frozen pressure switches, frozen above-ground jet pumps, and frozen lines in unheated well houses and crawl spaces. The mistake people make is thawing a line with an open flame — don't. Heat the space, not the pipe, and call. A frozen pressure switch can be thawed gently and often works again; a cracked fitting from a torch won't.

What we cover and how honest we'll be about distance

Close to home: Wantage, Sussex, Montague, Sandyston, Frankford, Branchville, Lafayette, Hamburg, Hardyston, Franklin, Ogdensburg, Vernon, Newton, Andover, Fredon, Stillwater, Hampton, Green, Sparta.

Regular runs: Byram, Stanhope, Hopatcong, Blairstown, Frelinghuysen, Knowlton, Hope, Hardwick, Independence, Allamuchy, Great Meadows, Hackettstown, West Milford.

Scheduled in blocks: Wanaque, Ringwood, Bloomingdale, White, Oxford, Belvidere, Washington.

That last group is a real drive from Wantage. We still go. We just schedule it, and we'll give you a straight arrival window when you call instead of an hour we can't hit. See the full service area map.

Drilling a new well and sealing an old one are a different licence — a licensed well driller — and we don't do that work. See our NJ pump installer licence page.