Mike17
New Member
Hi folks,
I was troubleshooting a low water pressure issue and confirmed that I had a clogged pressure switch & pipe (exactly as shown in a previous post: https://terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?26229-Pressure-Switch-Repair-and-Replace-w-pics)
Little background info, leading up to my question...
We have a 3000ft house built in '84 with copper pipes, however some of the main (accessible) ones in the crawlspace have been replaced with PEX. We are on a well that's about 50' from the house. We have very hard water. When we moved in 6 years ago, house was in disrepair and had to have the pressure switch replaced (service guy put in a Square D 30/50), and blue pressure tank replaced (says Utilitech, 100psi - appears to be 36gal, not sure).
About a week ago, the water pressure would drop after 5min in the shower, cut out completely, but then come back on after about 30 seconds. Yesterday, it took about 5min before the pressure came back and water would begin to flow. I turned on a faucet, went in the crawlspace and watched and the pressure gauge drop to 0 after about 7min (pressure switch did not engage at all). It would stay like that for about 5min and finally came back on by itself (or I could manually hold the contacts on the pressure switch to bring the pressure back up). I adjusted "nut #1" and cranked it down to see if it would affect the cut-in, but it didn't work. NOTE: I went to Lowe's today and they were out of the 30/50, so I went ahead and bought the 40/60 and installed it, since people were waiting on me to get the water back on... everything appears to be just fine. Had a nice shower, nice water pressure for the entire shower.
My question is, knowing our system had a Square D 30/50, is there any harm in replacing it with a 40/60? (Isn't it just creating a little more water pressure for our family when we take showers?)
One of my concerns is that over the past 5 years we have had a few copper pipe leaks show up and I had to get in the crawlspace and repair copper pipes that had become brittle (with PEX and the Sharkbite fittings, since I don't know how to do real plumbing). Also, when our washing machine is turned on and it "pulses" water into the machine (on/off, on/off, on/off), each time it does that it causes the pipes to move a little and be noisy --you can always hear the sounds of the water turning on/off in the pipes in the walls even when you're walking through the house. My concern is if the 40/60 could allow too much pressure on my pipes? Or am I splitting hairs over 10psi?
If it's a big deal, and you guys think I need to change back to the 30/50, then I'll head back to a different HW store and get the other one. But if it's a non-issue, then even better.
Any thoughts our suggestions you have would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Mike
I was troubleshooting a low water pressure issue and confirmed that I had a clogged pressure switch & pipe (exactly as shown in a previous post: https://terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?26229-Pressure-Switch-Repair-and-Replace-w-pics)
Little background info, leading up to my question...
We have a 3000ft house built in '84 with copper pipes, however some of the main (accessible) ones in the crawlspace have been replaced with PEX. We are on a well that's about 50' from the house. We have very hard water. When we moved in 6 years ago, house was in disrepair and had to have the pressure switch replaced (service guy put in a Square D 30/50), and blue pressure tank replaced (says Utilitech, 100psi - appears to be 36gal, not sure).
About a week ago, the water pressure would drop after 5min in the shower, cut out completely, but then come back on after about 30 seconds. Yesterday, it took about 5min before the pressure came back and water would begin to flow. I turned on a faucet, went in the crawlspace and watched and the pressure gauge drop to 0 after about 7min (pressure switch did not engage at all). It would stay like that for about 5min and finally came back on by itself (or I could manually hold the contacts on the pressure switch to bring the pressure back up). I adjusted "nut #1" and cranked it down to see if it would affect the cut-in, but it didn't work. NOTE: I went to Lowe's today and they were out of the 30/50, so I went ahead and bought the 40/60 and installed it, since people were waiting on me to get the water back on... everything appears to be just fine. Had a nice shower, nice water pressure for the entire shower.
My question is, knowing our system had a Square D 30/50, is there any harm in replacing it with a 40/60? (Isn't it just creating a little more water pressure for our family when we take showers?)
One of my concerns is that over the past 5 years we have had a few copper pipe leaks show up and I had to get in the crawlspace and repair copper pipes that had become brittle (with PEX and the Sharkbite fittings, since I don't know how to do real plumbing). Also, when our washing machine is turned on and it "pulses" water into the machine (on/off, on/off, on/off), each time it does that it causes the pipes to move a little and be noisy --you can always hear the sounds of the water turning on/off in the pipes in the walls even when you're walking through the house. My concern is if the 40/60 could allow too much pressure on my pipes? Or am I splitting hairs over 10psi?
If it's a big deal, and you guys think I need to change back to the 30/50, then I'll head back to a different HW store and get the other one. But if it's a non-issue, then even better.
Any thoughts our suggestions you have would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Mike
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