Water Pressure Regulator Adjust or Replace | High Water Pressure In House

you only want to really adjust these when they're being installed um new aha so [Music] so with pressurized pipe coming in from the street can be anywhere from what 140 to 160 maybe 200 sometimes right yeah i think maybe the most people see there's like 175 psi around there pounds per square inch yep that's that's i would say most common probably like 125 probably from the street yeah so um because of that because there's so much uh pressure coming from the street we have to use what's called a water pressure regulator yes and that's right here and this guy is uh pretty heavy see how long i can hold it here it's like a workout it's a shoulder workout for the front delts yeah so anyway this is a uh water regulator and as a home inspector what i like to do when i show up at a property one of the first things i check is water pressure yes very important and the reason i do that is because uh it it just lets me know first of all hey what is the reading first of all what's the reading is it is it above 75 um and my rule of thumb is if it is above 75 i make a note this regulator needs to be checked um because it's rated the range is 25 to 75 on these labels right so the old the old uh i said what's the word i'm looking for the old uh standard is oh it's 80 psi everybody always says 80. right i understand it's a little bit higher than 75 but um you got to ask yourself well who told you it's 80 where'd you get that information from so what we all get in the habit of doing is just listening to what the other guy said what our buddy said our old boss said well i i try to look into stuff a little bit when i can and it got me looking at these labels a lot right is everyone saying this everyone's saying this guy says this this plumber says that so at the end of the day the manufacturer is most likely going to know what their product should be rated for right so that's why i look at the label on here and that label clearly states 20 the range 25 to 75 it shows you the max psi that can come into this valve too which is like 300 on this one right so um that i like to start knowing exactly what the pressure is when i'm inspecting a house so if i see it way over 100 or even if even if it's in 90 or higher then i'm going to be really looking closely on the inside of the house for evidence of running toilets faucets leaking or dripping yes potential plumbing leaks already already happening like maybe inside a wall i know it's i can't see inside of a wall but you know you gotta pay close attention when you're looking in cabinets and for staining and i've seen i've seen bad regulators i'm talking 160 to 200 i've seen pressure at houses on all the hose bibs right so i know the entire house had uh way too high of pressure and i i called i called the listing i said you need to get a plumber here today because you may have a major major pipe break here that could happen at any moment and there was there was evidence of leaking all over the house the water pressure tpr pouring water it was a mess the house had staining everywhere there's probably leaks inside the wall and stuff like that what's your experience with that so yeah just to um kind of touch bases a little deeper on on the regulator um so yeah like we said before a lot of times the water you know coming from from the city is 125 psi and then what what happens is the water from the city will go through the regulator and then when it comes out the other side it's supposed to be you know under 75 psi which is what the tag says the highest rating on here so it reduces it down it reduces the pressure down the reason is all the plumbing fixtures inside your home were only designed to handle less than 80 psi so all your faucets shower valve toilet fill valve washer machine dishwasher everything in the house it has inexpensive plastic parts and rubber gaskets they can't handle high pressure over 80 psi or if the pressure goes over 80 the problems that start to happen you get runny toilets drippy faucets there could be an old supply water supply line under a sink with rust on it it could be at a greater risk to you know explode and have water damage also puts extra wear and tear on the piping you can get strange sounds and noises so when you have uh high pressure going into the home it's like having high blood pressure on your body where you would get weird side effects and things like that symptoms yeah yeah so it's it's very important to have a working regulator protect um you know the plumbing and the plumbing fixtures in your home i've also seen i've also seen on some houses where the uh pressure relief valve at the water main is dripping yeah so that's it that's an indicator in a lot of cases or for it to be code after the regulator there's supposed to be a relief valve where if the pressure went over 150 psi it would start dripping and that would be an indicator that the regulator has failed yeah um so yeah that's well let's discuss the reality of that most people don't put those valves in they put hose bibs in yeah a lot of the exactly yeah and sometimes you don't see them at all if um someone kind of reconstructed the piping at the front of the house and didn't really know that's something i write up uh pretty regularly at uh no relief valve in sight or i've actually caught it where it's before the regulator i see where they did it backwards yeah so so that's the reality of what i find yeah so regulators you know very very important thing and it's it's a very common problem to come up in home inspection reports um i would say they usually only last between five and seven years before they you know have to be changed out and you have to get a new one because the parts inside of it do wear out over time with the high pressure from the city you mean something you mean there's something that was made by a man that wears out really guys everybody watching and listening everything has a an end date exactly i mean maybe that pex doesn't we don't know that yet but maybe the pex pipe doesn't but this stuff here definitely does and can you get into detail on the adjustment on that yes so when when when you install this um what you want to do is you want to hook up a water pressure test gauge downstream of the meter and or the regulator excuse me and you want to turn on the test gauge usually when these are fresh out of the box they'll show around 50 psi is what it's down i like to crank them up a little more so the customer is not complaining about low water pressure so i always try to set them around 65 psi around 65 67 psi is is the sweet spot so how you do that is you have your test gauge on this side and then there's a set screw here you you loosen the set screw here and then the bolt on the top you tighten it clockwise so by tightening it you increase the pressure so tighten it down brings the pressure up but you kind of go slowly and gradually and watch your gauge as you're doing it now one thing that's very important to know is you only want to really adjust these when they're being installed new so you i see that a lot in home inspection reports not from john's but i've seen other reports where not from john's make a note of that not from me the regulator is obviously like 10 years old or older and the inspectors on his notes is recommending that the regulator be adjusted and that's not really a proper recommendation because we cannot if you go back and you try to adjust pressure on a really old regulator chances are you're just going to break it and make things worse it's not the parts on the inside of that point from sitting in place long term or frozen and if you try to adjust it you're just going to make things worse so really the adjusting is on the first installation you set it and forget it okay and then if you're taking a reading many years down the road and it's showing over 75 psi it means the regulator has gone bad and you have to replace it all right you just brought up a really good point a really good home inspector point so i want to i want to get into that a little bit now let me explain why what robert just explained about another home inspector saying it needs to be adjusted okay that is something he should not have wrote in his report and i'll tell you why first of all how does he know if the if the valve has failed or not he doesn't know that so he should not be saying that it just needs adjustment because guess what if he says it only needs adjustment and then the plumber comes out and tries to adjust it and it doesn't work oh it's failed right yes he's gonna you're that home inspector's probably gonna get a phone call to pay for that and then also it it kind of confuses you know the realtor and the buyer they think it just needs a simple adjustment yeah and then i come along and say oh no it needs replacement and it kind of takes their breath away they weren't expecting that right so guys don't say that no more just say water regulator needs further evaluation and then i always take a picture of the pressure gauge when i'm testing the pressure with my gauge so i just put that in my report to show where it's at when i was there and then if like i said to me if it's above 75 i i call it out i don't wait till 80 or 90 to call it out i call it out if it's anywhere above 75 only because that's what it says yeah that's exactly what the tag says yeah that's what it says what is it yeah you're not going to see that so really it's really fine print but i'll take a picture of it and i'll put it in the video version of this podcast so everybody can see that so that's the best way to report it guys if you're reporting this stuff as a home inspector anything above 75 just call it out or don't if you haven't already just take a look at these tags it's a little habit i have now i always look at these tags because on much bigger houses it might be different these valves come in different sizes so this one here is basically an average size regulator for this is the one inch six model 600 wilkins 600 a very a very common regulator because in the in a lot of cases you know a normal size home a three or two and that's a one inch in pipe exactly it'll be a one inch pipe coming from the meter so a lot of times you'll have a one inch regulator and then it'll go into the house after that point yeah i'm glad we cleared that up because there is a lot of uh confusing information about regulators out there right in terms of who you ask is what what answer you're gonna get and i'm telling you if i put five different people in a room i'm gonna get probably four different answers right so i'm glad we covered that thank you for that thanks for clearing that up because uh and that little point you made about another home inspector because otherwise i probably wouldn't have thought of mentioning that right and um yeah that's always a weird conversation when they're expecting an adjustment and it really should be replaced so you adjust them when you put them in to take away from this is you adjust them when you put them in and you set it and forget it set it and forget it and you said the sweet spot was about 67. six around 65 67 psi is what i aim for right around there but i don't know here's another thing so you can set it as high as 75 psi but i don't recommend it i've seen um situations where we you know we try to max these things out get 75 psi and my opinion is that when you do that you kind of push this thing to its limit and they wear out faster and i've i've talked to a good friend of mine's you know a plumber with 20 years experience and i brought that up with him too i said hey if when we crank these things down to get max pressure out of him you think they wear out quicker and he says yes so i you know between my experience and his too we we always set them around 65 67 psi and i think it just gives a little leeway in the the capacity of the unit and makes it last longer right okay now i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to you as a homeowner for a second robert my water pressure my shower sucks what did you do to my system when you put that new regulator oh well ma'am you also hang on yes [Laughter] i'll be you now well ma'am uh so basically the shower heads that are sold nowadays they have these uh restrictors in them yes and i actually had robert drill out mine in my own shower uh a couple years ago and uh because once again it's the pressure your water pressure could be good it could be set properly at your regulator but all these uh water conversation water conservation um fixtures that come out nowadays here in california they're a bit ridiculous and there's like there's no water pressure at my shower technically there is what good water pressure at your shower it's the shower head restricting the flow so you can do things to do that if it really bothers you so my customers how's the water pressure what that means is what's it like coming out of the shower right that's the only thing that means when a customer says that they never they're not concerned about what's coming in from the street because they don't know that part they only want to know what's going to hit them on the head when they get in the shower is it going to be a lot of i want high water pressure i want this i understand but a common misconception is uh it's you know one yeah that means the other yeah i've gotten into with a lot of customers um about you know the water pressure coming out of their shower and and how this will come up is they'll their regulator their house will be broken so they're getting like over 100 pounds of pressure going in the house and then i'll bring it up to them like hey we need to put a regulator on and bring it back down to like 65 psi and they're just like fighting me tooth and nail they're like oh no i want my my shower needs to be water coming out quick and a lot of pressure um but in a lot of those cases i've ended up putting the regulator on and then i'll take the customer to the shower and turn it on and they don't even notice a difference they say oh i don't even notice okay so they were really just fighting me for nothing i'm sure you can notice a subtle difference yeah but yeah um in reality these when when these homes are built they're designed to work under 80 pounds of pressure you know so the fact the regulator went out now you're getting more pressure you got used to it it's kind of too bad you need to keep it in a safe zone about 65 pounds protect everything yep i'm telling you you gotta you gotta really get this done on your house if you haven't already had yeah go out just go to home depot and uh if you already own a home or you're already living in a home just go out and buy a little cheap gauge they sell them at home yeah they sell them home depot amazon they're like 10 bucks probably yeah find a pipe that's coming right out my best the best recommendation i'll give us as to what hose bib to do it on is one that's coming directly out of the wall of the house exactly that'd be the best spot i don't if you find a find one that's away from the house that you use to water the grass that may be on street pressure if it's coming out of the ground it could be from the irrigation side yeah it could be unregulated but if it's coming out of the side wall of a house or the back wall of a house it's probably connected to the all the water piping under the house which should be regulated so that'd be a good place to check from right and um yeah test gauge vary it just threads right onto the host spigot and you turn it on and it'll tell you how many psi you have and you just want to be under 8 under 80 or you know under 75 is preferred and the reason why you really want to make sure your water pressure is under control is because i have seen major leaks in major water damage problems because of this you do not want that that is an expensive uh huge inconvenience for you you could you may have to move furniture you may have to let uh mold remediators come in and open up all your walls to get to the source of the leak i've seen some i've seen some disasters because of regulators trust me you want to make sure you stay on top of this yeah good very good advice yeah so all right [Music]

Channel: Home Inspection Authority

Views: 16,017

Keywords: signs of high water pressure in house, Water Pressure Regulator Adjust or Replace, High Water Pressure In House, water pressure regulator, water pressure, how to adjust water pressure, low pressure, plumbing 101, how to install, pressure regulator, water pressure reducing valve, pressure reducing valve, water pressure regulator adjustment, plumbing basics for beginners, water pressure gauge, water pressure regulator replacement, plumbing 101 youtube

Id: zoXd2oRzQnw

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 18 2022