Questions for the plumbers

While you guys are offering such good advice. I have another one for you.

I have copper pipe through the house. (real OLD house but all the iron was replaced) but unfortunately the service from the street is only 3/4 copper. The riser in the house is 3/4, except in some of the older walls where it's

1/2".

My wife complains when washing/rinsing dishes that the pressure drops too much if simultaneous flushes or washing machine is running when rinsing dishes.

Normal residual pressure on street mains is in the 45-50# PSI range.

Do they sell a homeowner version of a inline jockey pump that would jump the pressure a few pounds when a flow was detected?

As a retired firefighter, I know you can't pump more than what the main can provide. But even a couple of PSI gain might make the wife happy.

And as you guys must know...."If momma is happy, EVERYONE is happy".

thanks again.

Reply to
FireBrick
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Was a pressure reducing valve installed when it was repiped?

I know it doesn't answer your question, but maybe something to check first.

Reply to
Matt

I had a house near the top of a hill years ago with a similar water pressure/flow situation. I ended up installing a booster pump with a diaphragm type storage tank, similar to what you'd use for a shallow well system. AFAIK most shallow well puming equipment should work OK in that application, but I'm not completely certain about that, so check it out yourself.

Anyway, I set the pressure switch to kick the pump on when pressure fell below 60 psi and stop it at about 75 psi.

It helped a lot, but I did measure the pump motor's running current and got ticked off when I realized that I was paying more for the juice to pressurize the water than I was for the water itself.

The city eventually improved their own system and gave us enough water pressure so that I was able to stop using and remove that auxillary booster pump and tank.

HTH,

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

How about restricting the flow to the offending other uses? The washing machine will not really notice if it is partly restricted. It may take a couple of extra minutes to wash a load, but who will know. Same with a toilet refilling.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

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