Another follow-up on bassement leak.
It's been done for a week now, but you should all know that when I put the replacement pressure regulator in, it leaked both above and below it, a very small leak, maybe 5 drops a day, and a teeny-tiny leak, maybe
2 drops of water a day. That's a measure, but no water was droppping from the pipes.
Then I had to wait several days until the hundreds of little drops of condesnaation eveaporated, so I could tell if it was leaking or not. I would think the humidity in the basment doesn't vary much and yet first there was no condensation, then for 2 or 3 days there was lots, then there was none!!! Now there is lots. How come?
I had used teflon tape before, but it might have only been on the TP relief valve on the water heater. Those threads ae not tapered, are they?
I had not dealt with tapered threads before and some instructions said not to tighten too tight or you would crush them. Gollly, I don't want to crush them.
I ended up re-tighening the bottom a lot and the top in two stages, ending up using the longer wrench and doing it pretty much as tight as I could, and both stopped leaking. It was good that I'd used Sharkbite for the final connector, because that rotates and it enabled me to turn the pipe/connector going into the regulator. If everything had been soldered, I would have had to unsolder something. --
Then I measured the pressure and it's only 40psi. As I posted, the tech said the gauge is probably right*** and the regulator not set at 50 like the instruction sheet says. I haven't turned it higher yet, but I did measure my n'bors' .
His house was 115 psi, but he says he's never noticed that the pressure is higher than anywhere else. He grew up in a house with well water. Can we assume that no well pump ever has pressure much higher than 50**? So is his pressure really so much higher than he's used to and he just can't tell the difference?
**"Most well pump controllers have a fixed 20PSI swing from on to off, but many can be adjusted so they can swing 40-60, 50-70, 60-80, 30-50,
23.5-43.5 etc." *Most well tanks come set at 30/50. The cut-on pressure for the well pump is 30 psi, so the pressure of the tank should have a pressure of 28 psi.*
***And since I later learned the gauge would go up to 115, that too implies the gauge is working right
Doesn't city water have to have higher pressure so it can reach to the top of 6-story buildings on hills, and for fire hydrants?
What little I know is from NYC where the pressure was sufficient to go up 5 stories of a building on a hill, but for 6 stories, a very common height, a water pump and a large compressed air tank was needed. At some height, a water tank on the roof was required. But still, I think the base pressure was a lot higher than 80. But why would a well pump put out more than 80 at the most.