Question regarding plumbing

[micky]

Maybe he has a pr essur e regulator that's set wrong, or is bad.

[micky]

Maybe you can just clamp a guage to the end of a fauce that is full on.

The kitchen spigot has threads even.

[micky]

That assumes everfything has gone fine since then. And plainly, something is not fine. It could be not fine in your house, or not fine from the city.

At a friend's house, the drains worked badly. Maybe the toilet overflowed, The plubmer came and was going to dig up the front lawn and replace the drain all the way to the sewere. No use of a camera gto look for an obsturction, but another friend of the same guy told him to call the county. The county cleaned out their part of the sewer and after that, his drains worked fine.

It's always a mistake to think something works just because it used to work.

[Doug Miller]

micky wrote in news:43hni71mn90h6hobj0vhe0e3koac8b8dag@

4ax.com:

???

"4 or 5 flights" is maybe sixty feet, definitely less than 30 psi of head loss.

Indianapolis city water pressure is around 120 psi -- which would still leave 90 psi available on the sixth floor. Is NYC pressure that much lower? Or is the pump a city code requirement?

[Tomsic]

Flushing hydrants may be more common in rust-belt cities because of, well, rust. It's best to get the rust out to avoid reduced flows in case of fires and emergency hydrant use. Around here (Ohio), the hydrants are flushed every spring by the fire departments. It makes for some rustry crud on the streets and rusty water in the house; but the water clears up within a short time. I usually drain some of the same stuff out of the bottom of the hot water heater every couple of years so the heating efficiency doesn't drop.

Broken water mains can also cause rusty water as the increased flow stirs up the rusty stuff in the pipes.

I think it's good to see my street hydrant tested once a year -- never know when it will be needed.

Tomsic

[Stormin Mormon]

Fire hydrant is like any mechanical device. Left idle, eventually, it's gonna rust or corrode, and turn into a lump of useless. Not a very good idea for a device that may be needed for emergency.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

.

Flushing hydrants may be more common in rust-belt cities because of, well, rust. It's best to get the rust out to avoid reduced flows in case of fires and emergency hydrant use. Around here (Ohio), the hydrants are flushed every spring by the fire departments. It makes for some rustry crud on the streets and rusty water in the house; but the water clears up within a short time. I usually drain some of the same stuff out of the bottom of the hot water heater every couple of years so the heating efficiency doesn't drop.

Broken water mains can also cause rusty water as the increased flow stirs up the rusty stuff in the pipes.

I think it's good to see my street hydrant tested once a year -- never know when it will be needed.

Tomsic

[HeyBub]

City water pressure is usually in the neighborhood of 50-60 psi (at least in my city). Here, water is entirely gravity fed from elevated water tanks. The pressure provided by these elevated tanks is determined by the formula: PSI = 0.43 x height in feet. So, to reach 55psi, the tanks have to be 127 ft high.

To accomplish the same thing in Indianapolis, the tanks would have to be 280 feet up in the air. At that height, the city would be dotted with water towers taller than all but 17 skyscrapers in the downtown area. (Currently the Lucas Oil Stadium, at 270 feet, is number 18.)

The alternative to a gravity-fed system is one employing booster pumps. For a city the size of Indianapolis to reach 120psi, we're talking pumps as big as those used to pump water OUT of New Orleans.

I can't find any reference to the nominal water pressure in Indianapolis. Interestingly, however, I did find several news reports of the fire department being hampered by LOW water pressure, in one case only 10psi !

[Randy333]

BINGO. loose washer or something in a pipe is moving around, if you get a high flow going, like 2 or more things using water it moves the "thing" to a position that blocks off the pipe. Turn off all water and the thing settles back into rest position where it lets water flow past.

Loose washer in a shut off valve? peice of scale in a pipe? Some other foreign object inside a pipe? If scale or foreign object it is most likey at an elbow.

Start replacing all your "stop and waste" globe valves with 1/4 turn ball valves. While pipes are apart reverse flush with water or compressed air to see if anything else comes out. Then again, if you remove a valve that has the washer loose or missing you found your problem. If the washer is missing then proceed to find it!

Remove 333 to reply. Randy

[Steve Barker]

The 'fauce' doesn't even have to be 'full on' to get a pressure reading. Just barely open will work also.

[Attila.Iskander]

The other reason for flushing hydrants is to get rid of any particles trapped in a pipe Such particles sucked up in the a fire truck pump, can cause some serious damage or pressure variances in the pumping equipment. Much cheaper to go around an open a hydrant for a few minutes It also makes sure that the valves are operational. .

[micky]

Good point. The hydrant nearest me has been used, I think, only once in the last 32 years. Who knows if it still works. People have air conditioning, so the kids don't open the hydrants to cool off. (There was one fire. I presume they used the hydrant .)

[micky]

Good point. But a second test is to have anotehr faucet on and running to see if that lowers the pressure at the gauge. If it's not low pressrure but an obstruciton, this may help find it.

[micky]

I used to know which it was, 4 flights or 5, but I can't reember.

The other quiestion I've long had is, Does't it matter where the building is? My apartment building was at the top of Clinton Hill. I think the elevation was at least 50 feet above those who lived closest to the East River or the Atlantic Ocean.

My building was 6 stories high, and I lived on the 5th floor. I think the water worked until the 65-year old woman (who probably inherited it from her husband) sold the building to a 30-year old Greek immigrant who just didnt' seem to understand how it was supposed to work. After he bought it, it didnt' seem to work. When I was in the basement, the water pump was running constantly and there was almost no air at the top of the water tank. I didn't know how it was supposed to work either, but I went to the library and found a book with a drawing of how it was set up. I gave him a copy of the drawing, and maybe a page that described it, but that didn't help.

Although I switched to baths instead of showers, I could still see the problem when I flushed the toilet (Most NYC toliets use a flushometer, not a tank. So they need water pressure. That's also the reason flushing has such an effect on the water pressure, because there is no tank that's part of the toilet. Instead it takes water out of the pipe, almost as much as the pipe would give. (I had spent a year trying to adjust the flushometer, but sine there was only one screw for adjustment, I finally decided there was no adjustment that would fix it. .

I don't remember or never knew what actual pressures were. But I'm pretty sure the water pump/air pump/ water tank in the basement is a requirement for buildings more 5 and 6 stories tall. Maybe not private homes but I don't think t here were any private homes** that tall. And I'm sure the tank on the roof was a requiremnt for buildings over 6 stories tall.

**I lived on Clinton Hill, on Clinton Avene. In 1890 it was one of the 3 fanciest n'hoods (the Hll, the Heights, and the Slope) , and probably THE fanciest street in Brooklyn. Charles Pratt was an industrialist who made a lot of money in the 19th Century, in oil etc. He built Pratt Institute as iirc an engineering and architecture school, but he built the buildings with industrial strength floors, so if the school failed he could turn it into a factory.

He lived in a real mansion on Cllinton Ave. With a lving and dining and kitchen on the first floor, bedrooms on the second, and a ballroom on the third. All the movies you see from the period with fancy dances make more sense when you realize people had their own ballrooms.

When each son go married, the father built him another mansion , with a ballroom too. Except the last, I think the 3rd son. By the time of his marriage, the Brooklyn Bridge had been buildt (1893) and New York and Brooklyn had merged (1897?) and it was downhilll for Clinton Ave. from then on. Although even in 1930, my building was built. An apartment building, which to me is part of going downhill, but it had a doorman, two eleveator operators, a concierge in the basement to receive packages and groceries and meat , a dumbwaitier with "doorbells) in each aparatment so the concierge could send the packages up. A cedar closet in every apartment, a potato and onion lbin in the wall between the kitchen and the outside, and the front 2 apartments on floors 2 to 6 had a maid's room with her own bathroom, off of the kitchen. On the first loor the front apartments were a little smaller because the main hall to the outside took up space, and they were intended for doctor's offices or something similar.

For the 3rd son, Pratt built him a mansion on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

So if the Pratt's had 3 story houses, I don't think any house were 5 or 6, although maybe in NYC,. The Cooper Hewitt Museum etc. were private houses. I have to go look at how tall they were. Still, if one could afford a private house 5 stories tall, I'm sure he put in the best plumbing whether code required it or not.

[clare]

Is there a spec on how much FLOW they must provide at that pressure? A restricted pipe will provide exactly the same STATIC pressure as an unrestricted pipe, but the flow will drop off appreciably with any flow. (through the restricted pipe)

[Evan]

The FLOW or demand capacity is generally determined by the sizing of the line... It sounds like the OP's water supply line might be undersized for his location and the specific site conditions (top of a big hill, long pipe run from the street main) where a pipe sized for a normal house not located on a hill would be fine...

The problem here is either that the water system pressure has dropped again between the water works and the OP's house for whatever reason (intentional choice by water department or due to unknown as yet undetected leaks somewhere) to the point where the OP's pressure and flow rate drop when his home uses too much volume at the same time...

Either the pressure needs to be increased back to what it was, the size of the feeder pipe from the street main enlarged to help with the flow capacity at the new pressure the water department has established OR the OP will likely need to install a large buffering tank in his basement and supply his water by pumping it out of that tank with a jet pump, if the other options aren't to his liking...

~~ Evan

[trader4]

Or the flow could be restricted by an obstruction, kink in plastic pipe, a partially closed valve, etc. Hence his point on a RESTRICTED pipe. It doesn't matter if you have 1" pipe or 4" pipe if some restriction has it choked off to the same effective passage.

Or it could be a restriction.

Or if it's a restriction, the restriction needs to be found and fixed. I'd check for that before I installed a larger service.

[Tekkie®]

Paul Drahn posted for all of us...

And I know how to SNIP

There is no *MUST* Just because there is hydrants does NOT mean the flow rate is sufficient. The Fire Co. may have tanker trucks to provide water. Also if you start pumping the hydrant may get sucked dry...