Low water pressure on a well: who actually fixes what
Low pressure on a well has maybe half a dozen common causes. Most of them are not water-treatment problems, and we'll say that plainly at the top because this page exists to route you to the right fix, which is frequently not us.
First, one distinction that sorts the whole problem:
Pressure is force; flow is volume. Pressure (measured in psi) is how hard the water pushes. Flow (gallons per minute) is how much of it you can have at once. They fail differently:
- Weak everywhere, all the time, even one faucet alone → a pressure problem. Look at the pump system.
- Fine until the second thing turns on, shower dies when the washer fills → a flow problem. Something is limiting volume: the well's yield, the pump's capacity, or a restriction in the line.
- Comes in waves, strong, then weak, then strong → classic pressure-tank trouble.
Knowing which of the three you have is most of the diagnosis, and it's free.
The causes that are not treatment, and how to spot them
This is pump-company and driller territory. We don't service any of it, and anyone who leads with a treatment quote for these symptoms is guessing at your expense.
The pressure tank. That blue or gray tank holds a cushion of compressed air behind a bladder. When the bladder fails, the cushion goes, and the pump kicks on and off rapidly, you can hear it, while pressure surges and sags at the tap. Rapid cycling is the giveaway. Tank problems are a pump company's bread and butter.
The pressure switch. The small box that tells the pump when to run, usually set at the factory to cut in and out at 30/50 or 40/60 psi, the range is printed right on it. A failing or fouled switch gives you chronically low or erratic pressure. Cheap part, quick fix, pump company again.
The pump and the well itself. Pumps wear. Wells can slow down, yield declines, water levels drop in dry years, screens plug. If pressure has faded gradually over seasons, or the well "runs dry" and recovers, that conversation belongs to your driller or pump contractor, and no filter fixes it.
One fixture only? Unscrew that faucet's aerator and look at it. A screen packed with grit or scale is a two-minute, zero-dollar repair, and it's the single most common "low pressure" in any house.
Hot side only? If cold pressure is fine everywhere but hot is weak, the restriction is in or after the water heater, very often scale, which is a hardness story. See the white-scale page for that one.
Run through those and you've covered most of the territory without spending anything. That's the point of this section.
The one cause that is treatment, and the free test that proves it
If your house has existing treatment equipment, a sediment cartridge, a backwashing filter, a softener, that equipment sits in the line, and anything that sits in the line can choke it.
A sediment cartridge months past its change date. A filter bed fouled solid. A softener plugged with particulate iron it was never rated for. Each one is a valve slowly closing, and the house feels it as fading pressure, usually gradually, which is why it gets blamed on the pump.
The bypass test: nearly every installed system has a bypass valve. Note your pressure at a couple of taps, put the system on bypass so water skips it entirely, and check again.
- Pressure comes back on bypass → the restriction is the equipment. Now it's a service question, a cartridge, a rebuild, or equipment that was undersized or mis-specified for this water from day one.
- No change on bypass → the equipment is innocent. Go back to the pump-system list above and make the other phone call.
One lever, five minutes, and you know which trade to pay. Do it before you call anybody, including us.
If the equipment is the problem, one more honest split
Sometimes it just needs service. A neglected cartridge or an overdue rebuild isn't a design failure, it's maintenance. If your system is fundamentally right for the water, the fix is small and we'll say so.
Sometimes it was never sized for the house. Every piece of treatment equipment has a service flow rating, the gallons per minute it can pass while doing its job. A system rated below what your household actually draws at its busiest throttles every simultaneous use, forever, no matter how clean its filters are. This one shows up as the "fine until the second thing turns on" pattern that appeared right after the equipment did.
Sizing is arithmetic from two measured numbers: what the water needs treated (the lab report) and what the house draws at peak (fixtures, people, patterns, things we ask about on the first call, because a system that's right for the water but wrong for the house is still wrong). The reverse is equally true, and worth saying: a system bigger than the house's real draw is money parked in a garage. Sized means sized, from measurements, in both directions.
What we'd do
A free consult first. Twenty minutes on the phone. We'll sort your symptom into pressure, flow, or restriction; walk the bypass test with you if there's equipment in the house; and tell you plainly which trade owns the fix. If it's the tank, the switch, the pump, or the well, that's not us, we'll say so, and you'll get off the phone knowing who to call instead.
If the bypass test points at treatment equipment, or the water itself needs work the current setup can't do, the Water Assessment is a paid certified lab panel of what's actually in the water, credited in full toward a system if you go ahead. Equipment gets prescribed from the report and sized from the house. Both are numbers, not guesses.