Cycle Stop Valve
So it's been a few weeks since we installed our new cycle stop valve kit, and I'd like to share some thoughts and comments about purchasing it, installing it and use of it overall.
We own house in metro NY, about 40 miles northwest of NYC. Our house was built in the mid 50s, and is on well water. We recently were having issues where our water would stop every time it was on for more than a few seconds. It would stop, for up to a few minutes, then it would come back on. After doing some research and asking questions we believed that the pump switch needed to be replaced. The pump switch and 2 80 gallon tanks were located in the crawl space under one section of the house.
Not wanting to get the wrong pump switch, we crawled in to determine what the switch looked like, and found that both tanks were leaking, and probably had been leaking for some time. So now we find out that instead of replacing a pump switch, we also needed to replace the tanks. New tanks cost anywhere form $300 up, good ones are double that, and I wasn't sure how to even get them into the crawl space.
So we started doing some research, and came across a Cycle Stop Valve video about replacing a large tank with a much smaller one. Somewhat skeptical, I started to ask questions about this product to many people in my area who are much more knowledgable than I am about plumbing products. No one had ever heard of Cycle Stop Valves, and everyone said that there is no way it would work, it wouldn't produce any water pressure, it will kill my pump, and on and on.
But there's this very convincing video on your website, and the only negative reviews I found were written by the tank companies. And it's less than half of the cost of 2 new tanks and a pump switch. And because it is much smaller than the 2 tanks, I decided to order it and install in our laundry room, instead of the crawl space, so I'd have easy access to it if it needed servicing down the road.
Your installation video is very good, and I used it to install our new Sidekick kit. I was more than a little disappointed when I couldn't get any pressure from it, so I called your customer service number, and was immediately transferred to Rob, who was awesome from the first second I spoke to him. He asked me a few questions, and had me do some diagnostics, none of which worked. He suggested I shut everything off, and call him back in an hour. On the second call he was equally outstanding, but still no water pressure in my house. He suggested a call to the local pump guy is the next step, so I did just that.
When the pump repair guy pulled the top cover off of the pump, we immediately heard a hissing sound, and when we shined a flashlight down into the pump shaft, we could see water squirting out, about 4-5 feet down the shaft. The pump guy checked some things, and handed me an estimate for a new pump, wiring, and hoses for almost $5000. We need to have running water, but that was a huge amount of money to spend without a second opinion, so we decided to wait and see of we could get a second opinion.
Rob had been great with me on both conversations, and by this time I think he owns the company and designed the cycle stop valve (I'm almost sure of it now btw). I trusted him completely and decided I had nothing to lose by calling him again and describing the hissing sound to him. Once again, he asked me a few more questions, and said that I need to have the "O" ring replaced in the pit-less adapter. He said to find a pump guy that would come out and replace it, before spending thousands on a new pump. He emphatically said he would NEVER replace a pump that was running, under any circumstance.
Well, it took a while, but we finally found a great plumber who said he would replace the O-ring. Turns out, it was the brass fitting between the pump hose and the hose going into the house that was cracked and leaking, which he replaced along with the O-ring for a few hundred dollars.
At this point, Rob had saved us thousands of dollars. The pump and the Cycle Stop Valve are now working flawlessly, and we have never had the kind of water pressure we now have. I have since showed it to many of the people who doubted it, and anyone who has seen it has been impressed. Thank you for a great product, and for Rob, he is awesome!
Ray & Robin Bolson
West Nyack, NY
