In my last column, I wrote about a rather unique pitless adapter — actually a pitless adapter and pressure tank combined. I failed to mention the matter of air control on these tanks, and so I will hold off on covering the advantages and disadvantages of this design as I write a bit about air control.
The first of these tanks that we ever used, we being my father and myself, were intended to be used with a drop pipe bleeder system. As I have written in earlier columns, this system consisted of a check valve with a snifter valve installed in it, the check valve being placed right below the pitless and some sort of bleeder 10 or more feet down the drop pipe. On each cycle of the pump, supposedly the drop pipe drained dry between the check valve and the bleeder, and the air in it was forced into the tank on the start of the next cycle. As way too much air was supplied by this method, if indeed it worked, any tank connected to a system with this type of bleeder or bleed back had an air release that bled off excess air.