water pressure question

[zapdafish]

I tried watering my lawn and the pressure is pitiful. I have an oscillating sprinkler and it has a reach of about an 8 ft square. My spigot looks like the picture I attached. Is there a chance that cap on the top will allow me to increase the flow? If not what are my options. will a plumber be able to help? Shower pressure seems fine but when I do dishes, sink flow could be a tad higher.

 

[Dave Richards]

That cap is an anti-siphon vent. It doesn't do anything to adjust the pressure. Do you have another hose bib or other place you can connect your garden hose and sprinkler? Do you get the same result?

Could there be some restriction in the water line between the incoming supply and the sprinkler? Make sure any valves in between are fully open. The hose isn't kinked anywhere, is it?

 

[Gofor]

As Dave said, that is an anti-siphon valve. They can fail if they freeze, but normally the result is that they leak out the top rather than restrict the water flow. I would suspect low water pressure, which could be from a variety of sources (i.e. someone opened a fire hydrant so the kids can play in the water, neighbors filling their swimming pool, etc).

If you get the same results from a different spigot (if no other outside faucet, may want to try the laundry sink, etc), you may want to call the county/city utilities department to see if they have any idea for the loss of water pressure. (maintenance on a water tower, repairing a break, etc) Could also just be high usage at the particular time you were trying to water. See what it does later in the evening or early in the morning.

I suspect low pressure coming to your house based on what you said on the sink and shower. Many new shower heads are water efficient, so give a good spray with less volume. The kitchen sink probably is not so designed so would be more noticeable than the shower, and the outside spigot is a larger diameter line than either of the other two, so a loss in pressure/lower volume, would be more noticeable on the outside spigot (especially with a 5-gal-per-minute capacity sprinkler attached). If that's the case, a plumber will not be able to help. (but will probably charge for the call).

Go

 

[zapdafish]

Definitely no kink, I have another spigot on the other side of the house I'll try but I'm not very hopeful. I live in a fairly nice neighborhood and absolutely no one else is watering their lawn and everything is very brown but almost everyone has maintained their landscaping so I suspect they probably have resigned themselves to not being able to water their lawns.

 

[tdukes]

You can go to your local BORG and pickup a pressure gauge that attaches to your hose bib. Water systems have to have a certain amount of pressure under health regulations.

 

[Dan Bowman]

Are you on city/county water, private well or community well? Water pressure from community wells is often inadequate for landscape irrigation. If that's your problem, not much you can do except spend the $$$ for a private well.

 

[Gotcha6]

Some water distribution systems have pressure fluctuations based on the time of day when demand is higher. Try watering later at night after everyone has had their baths and such. You may also try in the middle of the day during the week when most people are at work.

 

[Brantnative]

City/town water pressures vary. Call you local utility office and check with them. As Eddie said you can get a pressure gauge to check it out yourself. When we lived in Huntersville the pressure was so high we had to install a limiter to protect the pipes in our 30 year old house. In Lincoln county the pressure is much lower. Just the way it is.

Also, check on your line into your house to see if there's a pressure regulator. When we moved to our new house the pressure was very low. Like you we couldn't water the lawn. Our builder told us they set the pressure regulator pretty low until someone moves in. He forgot to adjust it when we moved in. I did it myself.

Good luck.

 

[Jeff]

We're right across the street from a community well (maintained by Aqua America) and our water pressure is a pretty constant 70-80 psi. We used to have a computerized automatic lawn sprinkler system with several zones and had no pressure problems any time of day.

That's a far cry from the miserably low pressure at a single point described by the OP.

 

[nn4jw]

Mandated flow restrictors are slowly sneaking into all kinds of places. Measuring the pressure at the spigot is a good start. If you have good pressure there then I'd suspect that your sprinkler, especially if fairly new, might be the problem and have a built in flow restrictor.

 

[chris_goris]

Mandated flow restrictors are slowly sneaking into all kinds of places. Measuring the pressure at the spigot is a good start. If you have good pressure there then I'd suspect that your sprinkler, especially if fairly new, might be the problem and have a built in flow restrictor.

Jim hit the nail on the head. Pressure and flow are 2 completely different things. Simply measuring pressure does not relate to how much flow you get. I learned this in NY when I was hooked up to municipal water. My flow in the house was dismal at best. I called the water authority and the guy came out and put a meter on the house... 110 PSI coming in!, I was about 1/2 mile from the tower..... well we found the mainshutoff inside the house was nearly completely clogged.... cleaned it out and the showers felt like sandblasters!. Im amazed the valving in the house could handle such pressure but they did. Good luck!

 

[Melinapex]

We had the same issue when our house was first built five years ago. I did a little research and learned the main water supply comes in the crawlspace to a valve that controls the pressure to the rest of the house. Bought a $10 pressure guage and by adjusting the valve brought the pressure up to a normal level. I have forgotten all the numbers but we definitely fixed the problem. Good luck.

 

[junquecol]

Most newer houses are plumbed with 1/2" PEX pipe. All the fittings go internal to the pipe, reducing it's effective size to just over 1/4". First check pressure at spigot, using gauge from BORG. Then place a wye on spigot, with gauge on one side and hose to sprinkler on the other. Check pressure with sprinkler running, and see how much it drops. Most likely the fittings are restricting the flow, if you have PEX.

 

[mkepke]

Is the house on muni water supply or a well?

What's between the water inlet and the sprinkler? Pressure regulator, water filter, water softener, pressure tank, damaged hose, undersized/kinked lines,...?

With some thought, a 5 gallon bucket and a stopwatch you can run some comparisons of the time it takes to fill the bucket at various points in your plumbing and consequently what section of plumbing might be causing the flow issues.

-Mark

 

[Leviblue]

I had the same issue. When we moved in our house the pressure was great. After 10 years we had an issue. Then a few years the pressure would be low, then fine, then low again. We finally lost pressure to the point there was no water at all. The problem was our pressure reducing valve under the house. If it fails it's a fairly simple replacement, if you have the right tools. Copper pipes, you should be able to remove the union connections and replace. Pix pipe, you may need the connection rings and the crimp tool.