Water – Adjusting pressure relief valve on well water

First, the square footage of the house doesn't mean a thing in this case. The important factors are water pressure and supply line size and the height of the fixtures above the pressure tank and the pressure tank size. The well pump fills the tank, then the air bladder applies pressure to the water in the tank. a check valve stops water from going back towards the well. When you call for water, the internal tank pressure pushes it through the pipes.

A few different problems may exist here that would cause your problem.

The tank pressure membrane may be waterlogged. It will still show static pressure, but drops to a very low PSI when a faucet is turned on. Often, you will hear the pump cycle more that usual in this situation or you may see the water pulsate instead of a steady flow. What is your static vs open line pressure?

Another common problem is the backflow check valve is leaking. This causes water to be pushed back towards the well. the tank pressure will slowly decrease between pump runs.

If this problem has been long standing, then the pipe size going to the second level may be too small. Second floor fixtures or ones a longer distance away should be fed with at least 3/4 inch line, not 1/2 inch line.

The last factor may be that the well is not delivering enough gallons per minute. If the pump has to run for excessive time to fill the pressure tank, this could be the problem.

I'm sure there may be a few other items to check, but these are the most common problems.

All sort of issues here - while there's a short list of things that one normally looks for with extreme short cycling (such as a blown bladder in the pressure tank) that doesn't touch the 90 PSI issue...

If, in fact, water is going back down the well, the check valve in the pump (there is pretty much always one built into deep well pumps) is bad. Depending how your system is set up, there may or may not be another one inside the house, which would also have to be bad. My own system, after considerable reading and opinion-gathering, has only the check valve on the pump 300 feet down my well. When it goes, it's pump-pulling time. That would be the case even if there were others, and others might actually cause that to happen sooner according to a number of experienced well folks, which is why the other one I bought is still sitting in a box, not installed. In another few years I'll put a new pump on the shelf for when this one dies, so it's not a panic buy when (not if) I need it.

80-90 PSI is VERY high and almost certainly indicates a problem with the pressure switch. Certainly on my well the emergency relief valve lets go at 100PSI. On 40 off 60 is usually the upper range of domestic well pump "common settings" (30/50 and 20/40 being the other two commonly seen.) Ideally you'd know what your setting usually is or it may be recorded on a sticker somewhere on the system. You mention it going to the very high pressure when first switched on after being off for a while - what was it cycling between when you found it?

You could TRY hooking up a garden hose and opening that valve, then turning the pump on to flush out the crud that's been stirred up. It's possible-but-not-likely that this MIGHT clear a bit of crud that is jamming the check valve open. If nothing else it will get the stirred-up crud out of the well before the pump is repaired or replaced.

If your well is prone to throwing dirt, you may want to add a "spin-down filter" (I put mine after the relief, but before the rest of the system - this was contrary to the manufacturers instructions - they suggested after the pressure tank - but in line with the whole point of having it.)