water pump cycles every so often without use

[rongrice01@yahoo.com]

Every so often my water pump cycles for just a short time, like every 5 minutes or so. I have no leaks, no valves are open so I don't understand why. We took a road trip and when we were finished driving I noticed the water pump was running constantly but would not pump water out of a faucet. I shut it off for a few minutes, then turned it on and ran a faucet with success.
I wonder if, while driving and the pump was running, it wore out the impeller?
Any suggestions or answers would be greatly appreciated.

[dustyone]

Wecome to the forum. This question might be in the wrong place. That said, I'm thinking that the pump might have a bad valve in it. You may need a new pump. First make sure you don't have a leak. Check the valves including the outside shower. Check the hot water heater. And piping. If all that is good then the onway valve in the pump might be leaking. This will allow the water to run back into the water holding tank. I would also add that while you are traveling that you turn off the pump, water heater, furnace and anything else that you don't need. The less that is on the less mess you will have if something does go wrong. If plumbing breaks from jarring you will have a big flood. If water heater or furnace has a problem. You will have a burning trailer on the highway.

[herdbull]

Originally Posted by rongrice01@yahoo.com

Every so often my water pump cycles for just a short time, like every 5 minutes or so. I have no leaks, no valves are open so I don't understand why. We took a road trip and when we were finished driving I noticed the water pump was running constantly but would not pump water out of a faucet. I shut it off for a few minutes, then turned it on and ran a faucet with success.
I wonder if, while driving and the pump was running, it wore out the impeller?
Any suggestions or answers would be greatly appreciated.

Couple things here. First off, unfortunately if the pump is cycling briefly every 5mins or so you definitely have an air/water leak someplace. Question here is did you fill the water heater all the way up during the trip? If not it will bleed air and require the pump to run like yours was doing.

Secondly. As for the non stop running when you parked/stopped. Were you completely level all 4 directions? You could have been low on water and pumping mostly air. While pumps do go bad, most of the time there is some other factor inhibiting it to work 100% effectively.

[APD]

If you have no water loss then it sounds like the check valve in the pump may be leaking. This would relieve the pressure back thru the pump to your tank and cause the pump to cycle.
Why was the pump on while driving? Yes it can suck air into the system if it operates while moving. This can cause the constant run condition you described. I would suggest you turn the pump off while towing.