water pressure regulator

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georgiablonde

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Help! I bought a brick ranch circa 1958; unaware that nothing had been maintained or repaired in all that time. (Yes, I had a home inspection done, but I was out of town, my mother was dying, etc; you get the picture - I messed up but am now trying to live with what I've got. :( ) Anyway, I keep getting leaks. The most recent plumber who was here told me that the water pressure entering the house is too strong & this is causing the frequent leaks. I've also heard from a neighbor that their plumber (a different person & different company) indicated that their problems also stemmed from the high water pressure in this area of town.

The plumber gave me an estimate; said I needed 2 pressure regulators, one where the water entered the house and another before the water heater. He priced it at just under $500.

Does it sound reasonable to put in 2 regulators? Any opinions on what questions to ask next before I consent to this? Thanks for any suggestions you can offer!
 

Jimbo

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Normally one regulator is sufficient, located just after the main shut off to the house. If the pressure supplied by the water company is VERY high, you might need two-stage regulation. $500 is probably a little high for one regulator, not bad at all for two.

Can you post back and tell us what the street pressure is, and what model regulators your plumber has recommended?
 

Gary Swart

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In addition to a PRV, you will need an expansion tank. This is a topic fairly well beat to death in recent times, but in brief what happens is the PRV creates a "closed system". When the water heater heats water, the water expands. Without a PRV, this water has the whole city water main to expand into. The PRV prevents that and so the expanded water builds very high pressure in the water heater tank and trips the TP valve. An expansion tank place in the cold water supply line between the water heater and the PRV gives that heated water a place to go. Tanks cost about $50 and are super easy to install. As a DIYer, I've never heard of needing 2 PRV in one system, but this maybe the second thing about plumbing I don't know ;)
 

Cass

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The tank will also extend the life of your water heater, had you not had one.
 
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georgiablonde

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I will see if I can find out about the street pressure; the plumber did not tell me the street pressure and he also didn't tell me what model pressure regulator he was recommending.Thanks for your consideration.
I saw on another thread the recommendation for the tank; thanks for reiterating it. I'm pretty sure that the gentleman who gave me the estimate did not include one in his pricing.
 

Gary Swart

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I'd sure like to hear the rationale for charging $500 for installing 2 PRV. Yeah I know, time traveling to and from, taxes, other overhead, yadda, yadda. Fact remains pretty clear to me that for a job that takes at the most a hour, that's a hell of lot of yadda, yadda.
 

Cass

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2 PRVs are recomended in excessivly high pressure areas.

They recomend using 2 to lower the pressure, I would guess so 1 PRV is not working so hard and 2 would extend their life.

The last one I put in had that recomendation. I don't remember what the limit was but i'm thinking over 150-175# they recomended 2.

We have one town near here that I measured 197# once. That is the highest street pressure I have measured. I got a 2nd gauge to be sure It was right.
 
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