jmcclimo2003
New Member
Hi,
I have an issue with too much fall-off pressure when there is demand on the plumbing. A gauge on the yard spigot showed 50# with no demand, but that falls off to 20# if the shower is running, which explains why shower pressure is unacceptable if the washing machine is running or someone is using water in another bathroom, and this is obviously way more drop-off than the Watts PRV is supposed to experience with a few GPM running in the shower. I adjusted the PRV up to 70# which helps some, but I'd prefer to actually fix the problem. I checked the strainer on the PRV and it was quite clean. We do have a whole house water filter, so that could restrict flow some, but I tried replacing the house water filter when I got aggravated at the pressure one time and it didn't help. Unfortunately there is nowhere to connect the gauge immediately after the PRV so I can only see what is going on downstream of the house water filter.
Would you recommend replacing the PRV? I don't mind doing it since it looks like I can find an identically sized replacement and will only need to loosen a couple nuts to do it. I don't want to waste the time and money if it is unlikely to fix the problem though. Google tells me most PRV failures involve equalization with the city water pressure i.e. pressure too high. Even on this forum I only see one post about replacing the PRV for low pressure and it didn't work. We do have quite terrible hard water in the house, but looking inside the PRV strainer I didn't see substantial mineral buildup on the sidewalls, so I doubt the problem is mineral buildup in pipes throughout the house, but who knows.
I have an issue with too much fall-off pressure when there is demand on the plumbing. A gauge on the yard spigot showed 50# with no demand, but that falls off to 20# if the shower is running, which explains why shower pressure is unacceptable if the washing machine is running or someone is using water in another bathroom, and this is obviously way more drop-off than the Watts PRV is supposed to experience with a few GPM running in the shower. I adjusted the PRV up to 70# which helps some, but I'd prefer to actually fix the problem. I checked the strainer on the PRV and it was quite clean. We do have a whole house water filter, so that could restrict flow some, but I tried replacing the house water filter when I got aggravated at the pressure one time and it didn't help. Unfortunately there is nowhere to connect the gauge immediately after the PRV so I can only see what is going on downstream of the house water filter.
Would you recommend replacing the PRV? I don't mind doing it since it looks like I can find an identically sized replacement and will only need to loosen a couple nuts to do it. I don't want to waste the time and money if it is unlikely to fix the problem though. Google tells me most PRV failures involve equalization with the city water pressure i.e. pressure too high. Even on this forum I only see one post about replacing the PRV for low pressure and it didn't work. We do have quite terrible hard water in the house, but looking inside the PRV strainer I didn't see substantial mineral buildup on the sidewalls, so I doubt the problem is mineral buildup in pipes throughout the house, but who knows.