Well pump not working? A step-by-step guide for Greenville County homes

By the GVL Plumbers editorial team · Published Oct 31, 2026 · 10 min read · Filed under Septic, wells & storms

North of Travelers Rest, out toward Tigerville, Marietta and the Glassy Mountain area, and on plenty of rural roads around the edges of Greer, Pelzer and Fountain Inn, the water comes from a private well instead of Greenville Water. That's fine until the morning you turn on the shower and get a cough of air and nothing else.

This guide walks through why a well pump stops working, in the order we'd check it ourselves, and where the line is between a flashlight-and-tire-gauge job and a licensed well contractor.

How a home well system works

Four parts do almost all the work, and almost every problem traces back to one of them:

• The pump, which lifts water out of the ground.
• The pressure tank, a steel tank with an air cushion (usually inside a rubber bladder or diaphragm) that stores water under pressure so the pump doesn't run every time you open a tap.
• The pressure switch, a small gray box on a short pipe near the tank. It turns the pump on when pressure drops to the "cut-in" point and off at the "cut-out" point. Common settings are 30/50 and 40/60 psi.
• The pressure gauge, which tells you what's going on without guessing.

Submersible or jet pump: which do you have?

Look at the well house. If there's a motor-and-pump unit sitting on the floor or a shelf next to the tank, you have a jet pump. If you see only the tank, switch and pipes, and a well cap in the yard with wires running into it, the pump is a submersible, down in the well itself.

Most drilled wells in the Upstate's bedrock use submersibles. Older homes with a shallow dug or bored well are more likely to have a jet pump.

Well pump not working and no water: checks in order

1. Check the breaker. Well pumps usually have their own double-pole breaker, often labeled "well" or "pump." If it's tripped, reset it once. If it trips again right away, leave it off. That points to a short in the pump, the wiring or the control box, and resetting it repeatedly can do more damage.
2. Look at the pressure gauge. If it reads zero or close to it and the breaker is on, the pump isn't running or isn't moving water.
3. Check the pressure switch. Some switches, often Square D models, have a small lever on the side for low-pressure cutoff. If pressure dropped too low (from a power blip or a running hose), the switch shuts off and stays off. Holding the lever up for a few seconds restarts the pump. If you don't know your switch, or there's no lever, don't improvise.
4. Listen. With pressure low, you should hear the pump start (a jet pump hums in the well house; a submersible makes a faint click at the switch and maybe a hum at the control box). Silence means no power reaching the motor or a dead switch.
5. Check a 3-wire control box, if you have one. It's a small box on the wall near the switch. Some have their own reset button.

If the pump runs but the gauge won't climb, the well may be low (it happens in a dry late summer), a pipe may be broken in the well, or a jet pump may have lost its prime. SC DES has a homeowner page on what to do if a well goes dry, and that's a well contractor's call.

Pressure tank and switch symptoms

A failing pressure tank doesn't usually leave you with no water. It makes the water act strangely. Here's what each symptom usually means:

Checking the tank's air charge

Amtrol, which makes Well-X-Trol tanks, says the tank's air precharge should be set 2 psi below the pressure switch's cut-in. On a 30/50 switch, that's 28 psi. On 40/60, it's 38 psi. To check it:

1. Turn the pump off at the breaker.
2. Drain the tank by opening a faucet until the water stops and the gauge reads zero.
3. Put a tire gauge on the air valve on top of the tank.
4. Compare with your cut-in minus 2. If it's low, add air with a small compressor, then restore power.

Two cautions. If water comes out of the air valve, the bladder is gone and air won't fix it. And Amtrol warns against raising the precharge on a tank that's already in service without checking why the cycle time dropped, because overcharging an old tank can be a rupture risk. When in doubt, have it looked at.

Lightning, power surges and storms

Upstate summers bring a lot of thunderstorms, and well pumps take a beating from them. The pump sits at the end of a long wire run, often hundreds of feet down into the ground, which makes it a good path for a surge from a nearby strike. Common storm damage:

• A burned-out pressure switch, with blackened or welded contacts.
• A failed capacitor or relay in a 3-wire control box.
• A dead pump motor, which is the expensive one.
• Repeated short power blips that leave a low-pressure-cutoff switch tripped.

Many well contractors install a lightning arrester at the switch or control box; if you've lost a pump to a storm before, ask about one. When the power is out for a long time, like it was across much of the county after Helene, the pump just stops. Our post on plumbing lessons from Helene covers storing water, generator transfer switches and restarting a well after a long outage.

Cold snaps matter too. An uninsulated well house can freeze on a teens night north of Travelers Rest, and a frozen switch tube looks a lot like a dead pump. Our frozen pipes guide covers safe thawing.

Testing your well water

A pump repair, which opens up the system, is a good moment to test the water. The EPA suggests private well owners test at least once a year for total coliform bacteria, nitrates, total dissolved solids and pH, and more often if something changes.

In South Carolina, the main low-cost option is SC DES's private well testing service:

• A coliform bacteria test costs $20, according to SC DES. If coliform is found, the same sample is checked for E. coli. A metals and minerals analysis is also offered.
• Residents over 65 and people on public assistance can get one coliform test and one metals and minerals test a year at no charge. A new well permit holder's first coliform test is free.
• Kits come from an SC DES regional office or local health department. You don't pay at drop-off; the invoice comes with the results, which take about two to three weeks for bacteria.
• SC DES does not regulate the water quality of private wells. Testing and treatment are up to you.

Call the Greenville regional office before you go to confirm kit pickup and sample drop-off days, since samples have to reach the lab fresh. One thing people get wrong: Clemson's Agricultural Service Laboratory tests soil, forage and irrigation water, but not drinking water. Clemson Extension points well owners to SC DES or a certified private lab, and its Home and Garden Information Center has a good fact sheet on testing drinking water.

If the well house flooded or the wellhead was under water, don't drink from it until it's been disinfected and tested. SC DES says to use bottled or boiled water in the meantime and to test 7 to 10 days after disinfection, and Clemson strongly recommends having a licensed well driller shock-chlorinate a well that was submerged.

Plumber or well driller: who to call

South Carolina splits this work. Well drillers are certified by the SC Environmental Certification Board, part of LLR. New residential wells need an SC DES permit and have to be built to the state's well standards. Plumbers are licensed separately, through the LLR residential and contractor boards. Some companies do both; many don't.

Before anyone starts, check the license. Our guide to checking a plumber license in SC covers the LLR lookup, and the same LLR site lists certified well drillers. For what a service call and repairs cost around here, see the Greenville plumber cost guide, and the Travelers Rest plumbing page has more on well and septic homes north of town. If you're on a well, you're probably on septic too, and our septic pumping guide covers that side.

Well pump questions