I recently upgraded the plumbing in my house. I had 1/2″ copper throughout the house from the holding tank to the upstairs bathroom. That was all replaced with 3/4″ copper and teed off to all fixtures with 1/2″. At first everything was fine. Now all the faucets, toilets, shower, and kitchen sink all have a weak stream or fill up slow etc.
All faucets have been cleaned at the airator. Toilets have had new guts installed. But the pressure is still horrible. What else should I check? The holding tank requires 30 lbs of pressure which it has.
Any advice is appreciated.
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Hi,
You didn't also have a whole house water filter installed with the upgrade by any chance?
You need to check the pressure all the way back to the place where your water comes from.
If you get good pressure go the next place. You need to find out where it drops off.
A lot of the time you won't have a way to check with a gauge or anything.
You turn off the water and open up a joint or something. If it shoots out you are good there.
Sometimes a bucket or something to catch it is needed.
It takes some work and head scratching.
I have had a rubber washer travel downstream and partially clog up a shower head.
But that was just one place. Something upstream is partially blocked or closed.
Will Rogers
Open a joint in what? OP's pipes are copper.BruceT
Anywhere you can. There are some places. If you can't do that then you will have to make one.
My point was to go back to the point where you know the pressure is good and work your way back. It's not for the faint of heart. But it isn't rocket science either.
This post is pretty old by now. Did the poster figure out what was wrong?
I just went through the posts and read he is on a well. That explains a lot.
We were on a well in our last house. I replaced the pressure switch, pressure tank, water softener, and a plumber worked on the pump while I was out of town.
I'm no plumber but I got to know the system pretty well. Never did see the pump.
"There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."Will Rogers
Edited 6/12/2009 11:24 pm by popawheelie
see if the aireators at the sink faucets are plugged...
again...
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Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Edited 6/7/2009 3:19 am by IMERC
"The holding tank requires 30 lbs of pressure"
do you actually have a 'holding tank' or a pressure tank?
What kind of pressure tank is it? If bladder type, you could have a punctured bladder. That, combined with a faulty or mal-adjusted pressure switch low/high could be the source of your troubles.
Are you on a well or municipal water? If the later, What is their typical deliveered pressure?
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Unless you have some high-volume multiple shower heads going on, you most likely wasted money by installing 3/4 copper. Copper pipe at 1/2" should be sufficient size/volume for a single bathroom. With low-flow shower heads, faucets and even the toilet refill ..... you won't ever need the flow of 3/4" copper.
Your pressure problem..... I'd suspect something clogging the supply. Check back at the valve(s) that feed that new run of pipe.
Gate in a gate valve that is not fully open. They can partially "fall down" and not open all the way even when the handle is spun all the way open.
The seat of a globe valve is loose/clogging the flow. Maybe not open all the way.
Sloppy soldering has left a big blob inside pipes, blocking flow.
Somewhere (maybe here at BT), I read about a clogged pipe that wound up being a small toy (a marble maybe?) stuffed inside the pipe during a renovation.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
"Pressure" can be misleading.
For example, those little pressure washers put out 2,000 psi, but only flow about 1.5 to 2.5 gpm while a fire hydrant with only 90psi will put out upwards of 700 gpm.
Static pressure should be the same from the well head all the way to the last fixture if it is at the same elevation.
If you have a gauge at the source & it drops to minimal when a valve is opened, then your source cannot keep up with the demand.
If it stays roughly the same then there is a restriction in the line somewhere.
Most common is that you have a "flow" problem & have debris of some sort in the line.
Backflushing can usually clear this out.
Disconnect the main from the source & attach the largest hose you can get from the source all the way to the last fixture & run lots of water in short burst, then a good long flow.
This is the cheapest way & usually works to clear out the lines.
Was thinking about you, but hadn't seen you around lately and was afraid you'd been booted off site.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Been extremely busy with work & getting ready for the 4th of July.
I'm setting up a one fuse 25 minute 300 to 350 shot blast.
OP posted his question on the 6th and all the responses are still marked unread.
doesn't look like a hit & run though since he's been here since 2005.
You need to test the pressure at various points in the system. It's fairly easy to make up a pressure gauge with a hose fitting, so you can test at the hose bibs and washing machine connections. Then you can get adapters that screw in in place of the aerator to test at faucets.
You want to make note of static pressure, when no water is being drawn from the system, and of the pressure when a faucet somewhere else is open full blast. There will be a drop between the two, but pressure should stay above about 20-25 PSI. A serious drop in pressure (when the tank pressure is holding more or less normal) indicates a restriction in the pipes somewhere.
Also, measure the pressure through a full cycle of your pump, with water running somewhere at a strong trickle. The pressure should top out at 50-60 and bottom out at 25-30.
Are you on a well or city water? If you are on a well, you can adjust the water pressure. If your holding tank is really a pressure bladder type tank for holding your well water pressure, just adjust it up to 60 or so pounds and you will have ample pressure.
I've also found garf behind the shutoff valves under sinks. They restrict flow there so even if you cleaned out the airators you may still have a blockage.
Family.....They're always there when they need you.
We be curious
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Sorry guys for leaving you having. I am in the process of going down the list. Will start with where the water first comes into the house....It is a pressure tank and fed from a well not city water. Pretty much the only thing I did NOT replace was the pressure guage, pressure switch and first valve after that. Im thinking my problem is with the tank. I will post my results or more questions soon.
Thanks again, Dave
I've seen a couple with that problem that only needed the switch cleaned and adjusted. Lot of spider gunk in there!There is a high and low setting, so the pump comes on say when pressure gets down to 22# and goes off when it comes up to say 30#.But if your low is dirty or needs adjusting, it might wait untill the pressure is all the way down to maybe 7-10# before it comes onIf you have a holding tank of the old kind with no bladder, it might need draining to restore air in it.If you have the newer bladder type pressure tank, the bladder could be perforated.
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A perforated bladder or a bad pressure switch would give the symptoms that he is describing in a system that had been working properly.With a water logged tank when water is drawn the pressure will quickly drop and drop to near zero and then the pump kicks on. Likewise if the PS is sticking or badly adjusted the pressure will drop low and then the pump starts. However, once the pump starts, unless it is very undersized then it will build up normal pressure and stay there as long as the pump is running.If the pump (or well flow) is that undersized then a simple tank won't be enough. He needs a large storage tank.But a pressure gauge at the tank and monitoring it starting from no flow and then watching as the pump starts will quickly make it clear if there is a problem with the tank or switch.The one exception is that if the bladder gets torn loose and ends up blocking the pipe.But that is what he has. A restriction someplace in the line..
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I rented a place for 2-3 years that had a no-bladder storage tank about 200 gallons. There was a noticeable diff when it got waterlogged and needed to be drained and re-aired about every six months.Making up figures here, but for example, pressure would be at 30 static, then drop to 10 when first drawing water, then build to 20 while you were showering or whatever and go on up to thirty agin before shutting off.
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In addition to being water logged it sounds like the pump was very marginally sized..
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Gonna touch on what Piffin just mentioned - torn/perforated bladder inside the pressure tank.
Have encountered several where the torn bladder gets pushed down over the outlet and greatly reduces outflow... to everything in the house, of course. Water can go in because it pushes the collapsed bladder out of the way, but water can't go out like it should. In one case I encountered, no water could leave the tank.
If the bladder is torn, just replace the tank. It's not worth it to replace just the bladder. BTDT
Edited 6/12/2009 7:16 am ET by HootOwl
I replaced my pressure tank recently. You should be able to tell if it's bad, my plumber called it "waterlogged". If the bladder has a hole in it, your pressure is relying on well pump pressure partially, or entirely, depending on the air pressure remaining in the tank. If it's bad, you can tell by turning on a couple faucets, and standing next to the tank. You'll hear the switch kicking the well pump on and off pretty frequently. Mine was cycling every 15 seconds or so. If this is the case, you can try bleeding the water out of the tank, and re-pressurizing, but..... there's no pressure for a reason, ie; leaky bladder. At any rate, give it some attention. Not good for the well pump to be kicking on and off that frequently.As Piffin said, you can adjust the switch too, but I'm not sure of the range. Seems to me my plumber mentioned that if I wasn't happy with the pressure, I could get a switch with a higher cutoff and low pressure point. However, my plumber has a setup in his own house that consists of a second pump to boost pressure after (I think ) the tank. So there may be a limit as to how high you can go.I digress.....good luck