How do you know when the bladder is bad in the water holding tank?

Answer 1

If you push the air valve and water comes out, thats a pretty good sign!

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Answer 2

You won't have any pressure.

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Answer 3

Put something in the air nozzle and depress. See if water or air comes out. If water comes out, bladder is ruptured. You can turn on water and if the pump motor starts almost the same time as the water starts running, this is another indicator.

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Answer 4

When the bladder breaks the tank will continue to function as the older models did, without a bladder, in effect, the air gets trapped above the water, without benefit of a bladder and pushes against the water to give you flow out of your fixtures. Eventually, though, as the older tanks did, this one will waterlog, a condition where the water and air eventually mix and the amount of trapped air above water becomes very small, resulting in the pump running more and more, till it gets to the point of kicking on as soon as you open a fixture and shutting down when you close it. Testing the air connection at the top of the tank is a good indicator. If there's water there, the bladder is gone. If you want to continue to use it a while, you can have someone put air back into the top and push the water back down. Just open a valve somewhere first.

Source(s):

40 + years of home repairs and maint.

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