Replacing main shutoff and PRV

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Eviveiro

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I am in the process of changing the PRV and the main shutoff in my front yard. There was a valve box removed, which I am replacing with a larger one .

Does the existing plumbing look strange? There appears to be another pipe next to the main line, which just loops back under the pipe. Why would things be plumbed this way?
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Eviveiro

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It is strange. To me it looks like they fixed a break, but I don't know why they looped it that far.
Yeah, I was thinking they fixed a break, but then that elbow on the pipe in the back looping back confused me. I was expecting to see somewhere they cut it and that they just left the old pipe behind.
 

Fitter30

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Is there two shut off valves at the street? Even the elevation of the prv verses the other piping drop down instead of keeping it the same. Then why they installed a ball valve on the leaving side instead of entering and didn't add a union on the entering side for ease of removel.
 

Reach4

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Is there two shut off valves at the street? Even the elevation of the prv verses the other piping drop down instead of keeping it the same. Then why they installed a ball valve on the leaving side instead of entering and didn't add a union on the entering side for ease of removel.
What are the two black fittings-- could they be unions?
 

Tuttles Revenge

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It looks like some form of repair. Why its plumbed that way is unknown unless you dig further.. which may be beneficial to know if you have water to some odd location or maybe your neighbors have been stealing water for years or... who knows?
 

Eviveiro

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What are the two black fittings-- could they be unions?
the black fittings are more so grey, which makes me think this was a DIY/handyman fix and they used a conduit adapter instead of a regular PVC adapter.
 

Eviveiro

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Is there two shut off valves at the street? Even the elevation of the prv verses the other piping drop down instead of keeping it the same. Then why they installed a ball valve on the leaving side instead of entering and didn't add a union on the entering side for ease of removel.
There is only this one valve, shutting it off does cut water off to the entire property. The house has a decline toward the street. The piping around the valve box area does seem to be buried somewhat shallow, not sure if it is this same shallow depth up to the house.
 

Eviveiro

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I think I understand what was done now. It seems this is what the plumber who installed the water softener did. So they dug a fairly shallow trench all the way up to the back of the garage and went into the wall to the water softener, from there they had a second pipe go all the way back to the valve box and reconnect to the main water line.

I am in the 78249 zip code. Shouldn't these pipes be at least under 6" in the ground? There are areas where the pipe is like only 1-2" under the ground.

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Eviveiro

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cut it all out and go 18 inches min deep or a foot below frost whichever is deeper . sorry to say
I figured as much. That is about as deep as the original pipe running to the house.

I finished pulling up the sod. There is actually a section at the end that reduces from 1" pvc to 3/4" pvc, then at the back of the garage attaches back to 1" copper pipe which goes to the water softener...

Thanks for all the help.
 

Jeff H Young

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besides the depth all the extra joints isn't so good . I'm sure everything functioned but since its exposed, its the right way to do it.
 

Tuttles Revenge

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plastic pipe should be buried with a blue shielded tracer wire so it can be located by utilites.

I would definately get it deeper than a single shovel depth.. likely whatever the original depth was.. it likely has been disturbed earth, so should be fairly easy digging.
 

Eviveiro

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So it took me more than a week to do all this work in my free time. Soil here is extremely tough and rocky so digging took me the longest. The pipes are anywhere from the same depth of the original piping to an inch deeper now.

I went all the way back to the city meter, where apparently there was an elbow with a slight leak. There is now a straight pipe going from there to the house side box.

I added a 3/4 inch line going off the main line for irrigation with it's own shutoff.

I still had to use a few elbows to get the softwater line to go 180 degrees back to the main house inlet, but did reduce the overall number of elbows.

The city side water pressure is 85psi, the house side is currently 55psi. I have noticed when water is running there is a slight whine to the PRV, is this normal?

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