Increasing flow to master addition

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NateInPA

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I'm adding a new master suite over my garage. Basically the entire house was plumbed branching off a single half inch copper line. (Currently 2.5 bathrooms). I have a well with an 86 gallon pressure tank in my basement. The pressure is fine when only one or two fixtures are being used, but drops rapidly as more fixtures are used because of the half inch bottleneck.

There is no easy way to resolve this without re plumbing the entire house.

My question is: Would adding a second 86 gallon pressure tank right next to my new master bathroom alleviate some of this? I plan on having a dedicated hot water heater for the master bath as well.
 

Reach4

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There is no easy way to resolve this without re plumbing the entire house.
If you have a submersible pump, the easiest improvement would be to to turn the pressure higher, such as 50/70. You would, in that case increase the air precharge to 48.

My question is: Would adding a second 86 gallon pressure tank right next to my new master bathroom alleviate some of this? I plan on having a dedicated hot water heater for the master bath as well.
Does the new master bath have its own water heater?
 

NateInPA

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If you have a submersible pump, the easiest improvement would be to to turn the pressure higher, such as 50/70. You would, in that case increase the air precharge to 48.


Does the new master bath have its own water heater?
Yes the new master bath will have its own water heater. I was going to put an 86 gallon pressure tank with a check valve on it, and then supply the hot water heater and the rest of the master bath from that pressure tank.
 

Reach4

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Yes the new master bath will have its own water heater. I was going to put an 86 gallon pressure tank with a check valve on it, and then supply the hot water heater and the rest of the master bath from that pressure tank.
I think that will improve things a lot, but will not be perfect.

Can't you run a piece of 3/4 PEX from the existing pressure tank to the new master suite?
 

LLigetfa

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An 86 gallon tank doesn't have enough drawdown to provide the total volume you are likely to use in the master bath so the extra volume with be short-lived. Also, there is no way to control how full the tank is at the start of use. Murphy's Law states that the tank will almost be empty when you start to use it.

You need to eliminate the 1/2" feed bottleneck but I fail to understand why the whole house would need to be re-plumbed. Just run a new line to the master bath.
 

NateInPA

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An 86 gallon tank doesn't have enough drawdown to provide the total volume you are likely to use in the master bath so the extra volume with be short-lived. Also, there is no way to control how full the tank is at the start of use. Murphy's Law states that the tank will almost be empty when you start to use it.

You need to eliminate the 1/2" feed bottleneck but I fail to understand why the whole house would need to be re-plumbed. Just run a new line to the master bath.

Unfortunately the existing pressure tank and main line into the house are in the basement on the opposite side of the house as the garage, so I would have to cut up quite a bit of drywall to run a 3/4 pex line.

I was hoping having another pressure tank nearthe master bath would help things as it's a much easier solution.
 

LLigetfa

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What you propose could in fact make it worse. I assume presently the water is supplied by two 1/2" lines, one hot and one cold. You would be further bottlenecking those two into just the one 1/2" cold line so the existing hot line would no longer share the volume.
 

NateInPA

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What you propose could in fact make it worse. I assume presently the water is supplied by two 1/2" lines, one hot and one cold. You would be further bottlenecking those two into just the one 1/2" cold line so the existing hot line would no longer share the volume.

Right now there is a 1/2" line from the basement pressure tank up to the laundry room. The laundry room is where the existing hot water heater is located. In the laundry room they took the 1/2" line and increased it to 3/4", and everything in the house is fed off that 3/4" line(but it all started as 1/2", hence the bottleneck). Why the ran a 1/2" line from the basement to the laundry room I have no idea, but it's buried in the concrete wall.

I was going to tee off that 3/4" line and run a 3/4" line to the garage to supply the new water heater and pressure tank.

I could run a 3/4" pex line from the basement to the laundry room to solve the whole bottleneck, but I would have to rip half my house up to do it.
 

Reach4

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I could run a 3/4" pex line from the basement to the laundry room to solve the whole bottleneck, but I would have to rip half my house up to do it.
If you think about it, you might find a less-destructive path to fish pipe.

Could you run wires? Fishing wires is easier than fishing pipe. If you put the pressure tank on the far side of that 1/2 inch stretch, but also put the pressure switch at the new pressure tank location, that would probably make the pressure problem go away.

You could still provide water to the basement from the piping between the well and the pressure tank.
 

LLigetfa

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I could run a 3/4" pex line from the basement to the laundry room to solve the whole bottleneck, but I would have to rip half my house up to do it.
Maybe you could rip up your yard instead and trench the line from the well to terminate at a better location.
 

Jadnashua

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It may be that the production rate on your well doesn't support much more than that 1/2" pipe. The way around that is to utilize a large holding tank and a pump on that. Any idea what that rate is?
 
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