Reliability of pressure reducing valves

Mar 14, 2024 Last reply: 2 years ago 12 Replies

We have always had issues with one of our toilets l. The cistern is mains fed, and I feel that it would be less problematic if it was fed with a lower pressure feed….



The obvious solution would be to connect it to the cold water storage tank…



However, easier would be to fit a PRV inline…



But, would I just be getting into another can of worms?



Its in a high pressure hard water “area”.


Assuming you've got an isolation valve fitted, just partly close it until you've got the flow rate you're happy with. We're in hard - very hard water area.

It rather depends if pressure is the problem or flow. Partially closing the isolation valve won’t affect pressure.

Tim

+1 and also make the flow noticeably more noisy.

In my limited experience I have not had any problems with any of mine - the one on my unvented cylinder has been fine over 12 years.

(I did find a "stuck" one on a neighbours shower once though - the original installer had used one to try and balance a cold mains feed with a gravity hot one - it did not work that well, and lost the plot completely when they switched to a combi for hot water. One day some years later the lady of the house was complaining that their shower had never worked properly. So I thought I would investigate. I found and excised said PRV and the shower worked ok after)

It won't affect static pressure, but it may affect dynamic pressure. A restriction that reduces the flow into an open-ended pipe (or one with a partially open valve) may not have enough flow to cause sufficient back-pressure to raise the pressure back up after the restriction.

Open ended pipe? We’re talking about a toilet cistern valve. At some point it will close.

We’ve not been told what the actual problem is so it’s a bit tricky to speculate on what the best cure might be.

Tim

Agreed, but until it closes, it is open ended. Certainly one of our toilets tends to be noisy while filling, but with the isolator closed a bit, it is almost silent, except for the last couple of seconds - which are not loud enough or long enough for us to worry about.

Does the cistern fill valve have the correct insert for high pressure?

eg -

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My feeling is that pressure is the issue (literally).

The pipe that enters the bottom of the cistern has a slight seepage. I was thinking this was to do with the connection (“Tap Connector”? to the bottom of the (plastic) valve unit.

It is very difficult to work out whether the seepage is from below (high pressure) and coming up the threads.

Or as I now suspect it is the joint between the valve and the (ceramic) cistern.

I will spend some time this weekend trying to fix a suspected valve / cistern leak and see if that cures it.

Chris Holmes snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: <Snip>

I backed off the nut that secures the valve to the cistern and wound some soft string and vaseline round the “threaded shaft” and tightened the not as much as I dared.

For belt and braces I put some Plumbers Mait (which I think is just a trade name for linseed oil putty) over the joint. But bits of it are falling down. Perhaps the putty is too “wet”. I think my father used to roll it in newspaper if that was the case.

Does that sound right?

It's more likely that its the rubber washer inside the cistern that stops the water leaking. Applying anything to the thread is unlikely to do anything on this type of connection.

In my experience there is often a problem with the plastic/nylon nuts used to tighten the valve (or taps)in place, especially if being tightened for a second time. The nut deforms and as you tighten the nut it jumps threads and loosens again. I discard plastic/nylon nuts and replace with brass*

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*I once purchased a tap which came with brass back nuts. Unfortunately about 15 years later I discovered that were steel with a brass coloured coating. The tap had become somewhat loose because the back nut had rusted through.

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