Why Are My Pipes Banging?!? | Pressure Reducing Valve Installation & Adjustment!

low water pressure is never a good thing anyone who's ever tried taking a shower beneath the anemic trickle of a low-flowing shower head can understand the frustration but there is such a thing as too much water pressure our local plumbing code only allows a maximum incoming domestic water pressure of about 80 psi or 550 kilopascals and usually most buildings don't exceed that amount of pressure but there are some cases where the incoming water pressure is excessively higher which may result in banging pipes loud rumbling when opening up taps thank you and potential damage to pipes and fixtures If you experience any of these issues you might need to reduce the excessive pressure by installing a pressure reducing valve or prv for short first you'll want to test your water pressure which can be easily done by connecting a pressure gauge to any hose connection around your home you can either buy these test gauges pre-made or you can easily make one for about 10 bucks using some inexpensive plumbing parts from your local plumbing supplier you can find the required Parts listed in the video description below if your water pressure does read more than 80 psi as it shows here you may want to strongly consider installing a pressure reducing valve in this case the gauge is reading about 86 PSI but this home has been notorious for often exceeding 100 PSI so we're going to remedy that issue by installing a pressure reducing valve here's what you're going to need if you're installing onto a three-quarter inch copper water line of course you'll need a pressure reducing valve the one we're going to use today is a three-quarter inch watts prv model lf25 AUB Z3 this valve will allow you to adjust the incoming water pressure between a range of 25 and 75 PSI you'll also need some pipe and fittings most prominently two pressure gauges that measure to at least 100 PSI each gauge will be installed on either side of the prv to allow you to measure the pressure differential between the incoming pressure and the adjusted pressure we'll also be installing some additional valves along the line to make pressure adjustment and future servicing easier again you can find all of these materials listed in the video description below installing the prv first you're going to turn off the building's main water supply valve and completely drain out the system then you're going to locate an unobstructed exposed or accessible run of incoming cold water line of about two feet or so in length and that is as close as possible to the downstream side of the water meter you want the prv to be installed Upstream of or before any other connection so that the prv controls the pressure to everything in the building here we're installing the valve in a vertical configuration just before the house is water softener with the water still off cut into the pipe and catch any residual water if you're in a basement it might save you some soldering grief to remove the rest of the water with a wet and dry vacuum clean and ream your open pipe ends and let's work on putting together the rest of the assembly note that the incoming Union side of the prv contains an O-ring be sure to remove the O-ring if soldering too close to it and while the piping is hot to avoid melting the O-ring install the prv so that the arrow on the body points in the water's direction of flow otherwise your prv will not work okay let's put it all together start by soldering several inches of stubble piping to the metal adapters that will be threading into each side of the prv you're going to solder on these step UPS before screwing the adapters into your prv's threaded body and unit connection to provide a buffer from the torch's intense heat which is capable of damaging the prv and burning the Teflon tape you'll be installing onto the male threads remember be sure to install the Union's rubber o-ring after the assembly is cooled from soldering to prevent it from melting foreign foreign [Music] [Music] when assembled you should have something that looks like this starting from the order of flow here we have our incoming water pressure gauge which measures the Water Street pressure this should always remain higher than the other gauge then of course we have our prv followed by our adjusted pressure gauge this reading tells us the reduced pressure that's being output by the prv which allows us to Monitor and adjust it if necessary in this scenario we've also installed an optional hose bib which we installed for a few reasons first this will make setting the pressure much easier because we're going to be using the hose bib to easily allow some water to flow through during the pressure adjustment process also because this home doesn't have any other plumbing in the basement this hose bib now provides the customer with access to a drain port in case the water lines ever need to be drained down in the future always try to add value folks finally we installed a nice full port ball valve at the end of the assembly so that we can isolate the prv in this components for future maintenance without having to drain down all the water lines adjusting the water pressure with everything assembled and tightened and with the new ball valve in the closed position slowly open the main water supply and check your new installation for leaks the incoming water pressure gauge should pop to life and display the incoming Water Street pressure here we're showing almost 100 PSI not ideal and very likely why this homeowner has been lamenting about excessive noise and ominous banging whenever they open a faucet or flush a toilet at the onset the adjusted pressure gauge shows almost 50 psi if you're happy with that amount you could technically leave it set as is but for this building we want to increase the pressure a bit higher to somewhere around 70 PSI So This Is How We Do It loosen the prv's lower lock nut by turning it counterclockwise several times slowly turn the prv's pressure adjustment bolt clockwise while monitoring the downstream adjusted pressure gauge this may require a few full turns you should notice the pressure reading slowly rise as you turn the adjustment Bolt foreign you can test the prv to check if the pressure remains at the desired setting by releasing some water through the nearby hose bib if the pressure is too high or if you ever need to lower the adjusted pressure you do so by turning the adjustment bolt counterclockwise but because the existing pressure is still trapped at the downstream side of the prv your adjusted pressure gauge will not show drop until you release some of that trapped pressure do so by intermittently releasing some water through the hose bib between your counterclockwise adjustments [Music] repeat the previous steps until desired working pressures reached optionally tighten the lock nut snug against the prv's body so as to prevent any inadvertent tampering of your newly set pressure finally slowly open up your ball valve which will begin to fill the system at the reduced pressure and so that's how you install the pressure reducing valve if you found this video useful please do drop a like and be sure to subscribe to this channel for more videos along the way till next time thanks for watching

Channel: PlumbingsCool

Views: 10,173

Keywords: PressureReducingValve, Wats, lf25aub, waterhammer, water hammer, noisy pipes, banging pipes, PRV, high pressure, water pressure, plumming, plummer, plumer, air chambers, water hammer arrestors, copper pipe, soldering, how to install a prv, installing a prv, how to install a pressure reducing valve, prv adjustment, reduce pressure, low water pressure

Id: _dBLKHrOE98

Length: 7min 24sec (444 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2022