Nezil
Member
I recently installed a softener at our home, and as part of this process decided to measure my water pressure.
To cut a long story short, our 10 year old 1-1/4" Watts 25AUB-Z3 appears to have failed. The failure mode is that it is reducing pressure when water flows through it, but as soon as flow stops, it doesn't seal, resulting in a rise to street pressure of 95 PSI over about a 30 second duration.
The photo below shows the location of the unit (central leg), which is actually under a shrub, and therefore a real pain to get to.
It's not actually buried, but it nearly is, and I have no idea why there is tape wrapped around the union side of the pipe.
Looking online, I can find a replacement PRV at a cost of around $210, or a repair kit for $65. This is quite an unexpected cost, and I'd rather not have to cough up in excess of $200 if I don't have to.
I realise that re-building a PRV is probably not easy, but since adding the softener, I've got pretty good at cleaning our particularly type of scale that we suffer with - Muriatic acid! It's strong stuff obviously, but an hour soak in a 1:4 solution dissolves the scale to the point where it pretty much wipes off. I wouldn't want to put every material in such a solution, but I'd have thought the ones used in a PRV would have no issues.
My question then is... Should I go through the trouble of repairing the PRV, or just replace it with a new one?
Does anyone know what the tape wrap is by the way?
Any help or advice appreciated!
To cut a long story short, our 10 year old 1-1/4" Watts 25AUB-Z3 appears to have failed. The failure mode is that it is reducing pressure when water flows through it, but as soon as flow stops, it doesn't seal, resulting in a rise to street pressure of 95 PSI over about a 30 second duration.
The photo below shows the location of the unit (central leg), which is actually under a shrub, and therefore a real pain to get to.
Looking online, I can find a replacement PRV at a cost of around $210, or a repair kit for $65. This is quite an unexpected cost, and I'd rather not have to cough up in excess of $200 if I don't have to.
I realise that re-building a PRV is probably not easy, but since adding the softener, I've got pretty good at cleaning our particularly type of scale that we suffer with - Muriatic acid! It's strong stuff obviously, but an hour soak in a 1:4 solution dissolves the scale to the point where it pretty much wipes off. I wouldn't want to put every material in such a solution, but I'd have thought the ones used in a PRV would have no issues.
My question then is... Should I go through the trouble of repairing the PRV, or just replace it with a new one?
Does anyone know what the tape wrap is by the way?
Any help or advice appreciated!