Flow and Pressure - Lots of questions.

Hi all. This is my first post here. I am not a plumber, or any kind of tradesman. However, I am in the middle of remodeling an old home and selling my current one. I will have more questions for you experts as this process continues.

Right now, I am selling my current home. It is in the "country" and we are on a well. We have adequate water supply from the well, and a pressure tank (40-60 psi) shut-off valve. The buyers we are working with are super worried about water pressure. When they came through the house the first time they ran the upstairs faucet and water barely trickled out. This is my fault, we never used the upstairs bathroom (we lived there 4 years) and a small chunk of wood was in the screen at the fixture. I took it out and the faucet flowed fine (normal or above as far as I can tell). Well, these guys who are buying it saw that and got all worried that the house could not supply adequate pressure.

They asked me to have the well serviced. So I called my local plumber (he has some kind of well cert too), who came over and serviced it. Everything is fine. I sent the service report in and now they are requesting that we hire the plumber to "Open all the fixtures and ensure that all of them have adequate flow". They want all fixtures open at the same time.

Well, I can tell you that you will not have much flow if all of the fixtures are open. Is table 604.3 the only quantification measure of the supply to fixtures? Should I be getting code minimum flows and flow pressures out of all fixtures at once (3 hose bibs, washer, dishwasher, kitchen sink, refrigerator, 3 bathroom sinks, 2 showers)? I don't think that is possible.

My realtor is fairly decent, but the buyers agent is an idiot, and I can't seem to convince him that the buyers should come down and run the fixtures in a fashion that they normally would to see if there is an issue. My plumber is coming over tonight, but what kind of report can he even issue? If he says "water pressure is fine", and it may be per code, that does not solve the buyer's issue.

Isn't good water pressure a subjective thing?

Sorry for the long convoluted post. I really appreciate all of your answers. I get the feeling that they are trying to get my plumber to tell them they will have the water pressure they will like, and I am not comfortable with it, and I hope my plumber is not either.

Thanks again.

They're being cautious because they don't know better. Ask them to open every possible valve at their current home and see what they get (unless it's an apartment, which may not show a problem).

The bigger thing, to me anyway, is the recovery rate of the well.

Nobody in their right mind opens all faucets in the house at the same time and expects great flow.

flow

Pressure and volume are interrelated but different. FEW systems will deliver the same flow with everything turned on as they will with normal usage. And, what is a plumber going to to that you, or they, cannot by just opening the faucets?

hj said:

Pressure and volume are interrelated but different. FEW systems will deliver the same flow with everything turned on as they will with normal usage. And, what is a plumber going to to that you, or they, cannot by just opening the faucets?

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Exactly, that is the worst part. These guys will not allow me to do the work and show them. All work done, is to be performed by a licensed and bonded service provider, and service reports provided with invoices, or the deal is off. If the housing market was in better shape, I would tell them to pack sand, but unfortunately this is our first and only offer after 6 months.

Even worse than all that is that I am a licensed civil engineer who designs water systems for entire neighborhoods! I have a pretty good understanding of flow pressure/static presssure/flow/velocity and all other fluid dynamics. I asked my realtor to let me talk to the buyers so that I can find out what it is they want, instead of relying on their idiot realtor to get me the information 3rd hand. No dice, this is pretty frustrating.

Really, thanks for your replies, and unfortunately you are only confirming what I already thought. Does anyone have any more suggestions?

Maybe you just need some different buyers...
Slightly more educated...
Send them back to the city where they can buy their water...

Chances are they will just complain about the smell of the dairy farm down the road....

Redwood said:

Maybe you just need some different buyers...
Slightly more educated...
Send them back to the city where they can buy their water...

Chances are they will just complain about the smell of the dairy farm down the road....

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If only you knew how true your statement is. I'll update on what my plumber said tomorrow.

If they are that worried they most likely won't buy the house...I would have them send their plumber or higher one to give them a report...you could end up in litigation if they buy it and it isn't what they expect...

It sounds very frustrating - it may not be possible to ever make them happy. Unfotunately, they are not going to want to believe *anything* that comes from you personally.

If it were me, I might have the plumber do one final inspection / report for them that accurately summarizes the performance of the system (maybe he can measure total flow rate from the well, or some other quantifable flow measure). You could ask him to document that the well is able to supply adequate flow for a single family 3-bath house, or something similar (i.e. the current flow rate can supply three simultaneous fixtures, or whatever is accurate).

When you provide the report, offer that they can have their own plumber do whatever additional inspections they would like.

After that, emphasize to both realtors that you have done everything you can. Both realtors have a strong incentive to get the deal done. At some point, there isn't anything more you can do.

I was curios about your situation, so I went over to my mothers home which is on a well. I turned on all the fixtures bath tub, shower, 3 lav sinks, kitchen sink, laundry sink, washing machine, and the single hose bib. All the fixtures met the minimum of the Illinois plumbing code, which is a minimum of 8 p.s.i (hers was 20 p.s.i.)

Here is the secotion about minimum water pressure in the Illinois Code book(of course you should check with your local codes for their minimum). I hope this helps you some.

Sewer Ratz. How did you measure the flow pressure at each fitting? I know when we measure the "flow pressure" of fire hydrants for water mains we use a specific device (I could explain it, or even name it if I had time).

Anyways, thanks everyone for your replies. My plumber came over last night, and we did as instructed. Opened all the faucets, and checked all the aerators (sp?). We ran the kitchen sink, 3 lavs, and shower, and were able to get the upstairs shower to hit the back wall. My plumber is a good honest guy, and very smart about this stuff. He just looked at me and shook his head. He told me this whole house meets the code and the construction of the system is above average.

We checked the pressure on the well tank as all of the fixtures were operating, the pump kicked on (40 psi), and kept the pressure supplied to the house in the desired range. Our water table is very good in my area, the well has never had an issue.

Anyways he is going to issue another report stating what he saw, that the pump is operating properly, that he changed the aerators, and that the flows at the fixtures are at least normal. I told him I would pay him to meet the buyers on site, to see if he could help them. He is up for that, no problems.

I called the realtor, and they would rather have their "Certified Home Inspector" come down and run the faucets again. This guy issued his first report and in his cover letter he said that the water flow in the house made it "not habitable". He did not quantify that at all, just wrote it down. In my business if I did that without justification, especially in the middle of a real estate negotiation, I would put myself at great risk. I am sending a letter to his board of licensing regarding that statement.

The buyers would rather trust someone who took a correspondence course about turning on lights, and smelling for ants than a proffessional, who invests weeks a year into his own training, and is licensed and bonded in case he screws up.

Thanks for allowing me to vent to you guys, I appreciate it and all the advice/support you have given.

Rocket Red said:

Sewer Ratz. How did you measure the flow pressure at each fitting? I know when we measure the "flow pressure" of fire hydrants for water mains we use a specific device (I could explain it, or even name it if I had time).

Anyways, thanks everyone for your replies. My plumber came over last night, and we did as instructed. Opened all the faucets, and checked all the aerators (sp?). We ran the kitchen sink, 3 lavs, and shower, and were able to get the upstairs shower to hit the back wall. My plumber is a good honest guy, and very smart about this stuff. He just looked at me and shook his head. He told me this whole house meets the code and the construction of the system is above average.

We checked the pressure on the well tank as all of the fixtures were operating, the pump kicked on (40 psi), and kept the pressure supplied to the house in the desired range. Our water table is very good in my area, the well has never had an issue.

Anyways he is going to issue another report stating what he saw, that the pump is operating properly, that he changed the aerators, and that the flows at the fixtures are at least normal. I told him I would pay him to meet the buyers on site, to see if he could help them. He is up for that, no problems.

I called the realtor, and they would rather have their "Certified Home Inspector" come down and run the faucets again. This guy issued his first report and in his cover letter he said that the water flow in the house made it "not habitable". He did not quantify that at all, just wrote it down. In my business if I did that without justification, especially in the middle of a real estate negotiation, I would put myself at great risk. I am sending a letter to his board of licensing regarding that statement.

The buyers would rather trust someone who took a correspondence course about turning on lights, and smelling for ants than a proffessional, who invests weeks a year into his own training, and is licensed and bonded in case he screws up.

Thanks for allowing me to vent to you guys, I appreciate it and all the advice/support you have given.

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Just used adapters to measure the pressure at that point while the other fixtures where in use. Kind of like what this site has pictured.http://www.industry.city.shinagawa.tokyo.jp/net-mihonichi/en/products/03_01.html

Thank you Sewer Ratz. You measured static water pressure while the other taps are open. I thought that might be what you meant.

I'm sure we could meet the minimum static pressure for each fixture type while the others were operating.