Well Pressure Tank

[Kamel]

My pressure tank has water coming out of the air pressure valve. I assume the bladder has ruptured. I know it's an easy replacement, but is there something I may be missing? If the current one is smallish, like around 20 gallons, is there something wrong with replacing it with it like a 32 or 44 gallon one? TIA.

 

[RatLabGuy]

My pressure tank has water coming out of the air pressure valve. I assume the bladder has ruptured. I know it's an easy replacement, but is there something I may be missing? If the current one is smallish, like around 20 gallons, is there something wrong with replacing it with it like a 32 or 44 gallon one? TIA.

Merry Christmas, lol.
I'd agree its a safe bet the bladder is ruptured, but the way you'll know for sure is how constant your pressure is - assuming it's bad, pressure will directly follow what the pump does. E.g. only have pressure while its running.

The tank size dictates how long the pump runs to reach pressure. Downside to going to a much larger tank is the pump runs longer - upside being you now have pressure longer before the pump runs. so what matters is what kind of duty cycle / constant run time your pump is rated for. I have no idea what the margins on that are... I'm sure there's some lookup table that could tell you what is safe for your pump.

Note that another variable on that run time is what pressures you have you limit switch set to.

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

My pressure tank has water coming out of the air pressure valve. I assume the bladder has ruptured. I know it's an easy replacement, but is there something I may be missing? If the current one is smallish, like around 20 gallons, is there something wrong with replacing it with it like a 32 or 44 gallon one? TIA.

Some good points in this video. Short and sweet.
I have replace a few of these for myself and family.
I also replaced a well pump and resized a pressure tank at the same time. Stuck to the average rule of thumb due to space restrictions. The well pump did infact live a long life but a failed tank probably killed it in the end. Hope you caught yours soon enough.

 

[OnlyOneDR]

You just need to be mindful of your well capacity and recovery rate, the pump will be fine. If you have a shallow well or a relatively small deep well then you could have an issue with not having enough water in the well casing to refill a much larger pressure tank and keep you from pulling down the water to the pump (if submerged), foot valve (if ejector), or well point (if shallow). If the well recovery rate is low then you could sit there and kill the tank and run the well casing down to empty before the well recovers.

All that said if you never have water supply problems with your well it is probably not an issue. I have a relatively small deep well on an ejector and it has a low recovery rate. I cannot even tell you how many times I have accidentally run out of water. All I have is a 20 gallon pressure tank. I did switch out the pressure switch a few years ago with an electronic one (Amtrol Guardian CP) as those mechanical ones always crapped out or went out of calibration after a few years and I was tired of replacing them.