Water supply / pressure problems - suggestions?

[Caddyshack]

I have a rural home which is supplied by a municipal water service. Problem is that I have very little water flow or pressure at my house - I'm talking about 20 minutes to fill a bathtub. It is getting to be a problem in the household for the new wife (and 2 new kids) who are used to 'city' pressure. You know the type of pressure when you can strip paint with a garden hose. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Anyway, I spoke with my municipal supplier and found my home is located at the end of a long feed. We've had numerous outages due to the age of the lines and I suspect the pressure is lower in the segment serving my house. Basically, they told me I was out of luck unless I petitioned by township to rerun lines, etc...

What I would like to do would be to find a way to increase the pressure and minimize the impact of the outages on my family.

I was thinking along the lines of a buried supply tank being filled from my the municipal supply. Then pull from the tank's supply, with some type of pump and pressurize a bladder tank in the house. I would like a filter inplace somewhere since the municipal outages always result in dirty water for 24 hours. Where would the filter go?

Will this work? I have lots of questions but I would appreciate any suggestions as well.
Thank you

Ron

 

[slowzuki]

Pump running from municipal supply to conventional cold water pressure tank.

You may have long runs of 1/2" pipe too making it worse.

Ken

 

[tc35dforme]

Domestic water pressure booster systems are quite common....very common in fact on high rise buildings to get the water to the top floors.

Do a google search.

The use of a larger tank will save pump cycling.

I don't think you'll need a storage tank...you just need to be sure that the booster pump flow rate ( draw from municipal system ) is less than the flow that the main allows.

 

[bky]

Well you can have your warter tested and there has to be enough clorine in the warter . If you are at the end of the line then there is less of a chance to have the right amount of chlorine since there isnt enough flow to keep the clorine level up so they might have to add a loop to keep flow up and to keep clorine level up. i would check whit local warter supplyer and have warter tested.

 

[JimR]

You could put in a jet pump and 30 or 50 gallon bladder type water tank that is used for an artesian well. A whole house filter before your pump would catch any sediment from their line. Personally I would contact the town and complain. You are paying for a service that you are not recieving to a satisfactory level that it should be. Town water should provide you with at least 3-5 gallons a minute.

 

[_RaT_]

I've done whole system's with booster pump(s). Even though a home has municipal or utility water, pressure may be either to little or in rare cases to high. If it's to high, thats easy to fix. To low and you have some alternatives. None are going to be cheap. How far are you from the utility main line? Pipe sizing is something I'm finding most folks know very little about. Nobody uses or should use a 1/2" main supply. For any run, you must determine, length, velocity, type of pipe material. The velocity is determined via the pipe size and the gpm. So, you get the pipe sized correctly, then you still need to often times, boost the pressure. A simple booster pump with stages depending on how much higher (altitude increase)your residence is from the city water line and length of run. A system I installed has a home with a vertical climb of about 200' above the city main line. Since water gains about 1lb of pressure for 2.3' of elevation drop, the reverse is also true. That means on this house, just to have the water come out of the line at the top with no pressure, we needed roughly 100 PSI. The city water was 60 lbs. I installed 2 booster pumps with various boost stages in each. In other words, I had a 1.5 HP pump that could pump up to 180 PSI and a 5 booster that could pump up to about 130 PSI. The 1.5 kicks in first and cuts out last. The 5 HP kicks in when the 1.5 HP can no longer maintain pressure to the 5 HP's cut in. So for example, the 1.5 may be set at 65/40 psi (cut out/cut in), the 5 HP might be 55/45 PSI. These pressures are set at the pressure tanks on the pressure switch at the top of the hill. The 5 HP typically kicks in when irrigation is used. For domestic needs, the 1.5 is quite sufficient. I suspect this is your case. One problem may well be that you do not have the GPM available to you from the municipal supply, especially in summer when folks may run some irrigation. Your pump can "suck" water, but very quickly you will reduce the in pressure to a vacuum causing pump cavitation, a bad thing. There are load sensing devices that will protect the pump in these cases, but again, a little costly.

In short, a booster pump can be installed, but be aware of:

1. low gpm from municipal supply, size pump for municipal gpm at main line.
2. municipal water shuts off for any reason, tank calls for pressure, pump turns on, no water, dry seals, ruined pump.
3. Pump runs continuously from stuck contact or valve closed before pressure switch. Pump heats non flowing water until PVC fitting (typically male adapter) collapses from heated water, water flows out pump outlet.


Use as many pressure tanks as permisable, the more the better, but one is OK.

Here is a link to the style of pumps we used, but you will probably not need anywhere near the stages these have. To give you an idea, the 1.5 HP was about $1500 and the 5HP about $3500. You might find a simple domestic, booster pump for a few hundred dollars or less that does not even have stages, that would be a real blessing. Rat...

Gould Pumps

 

[DKinWA]

I think the city pressure you referred to was actually a combination of pressure and volume as Rat eluded too. Before you you make any changes, I'd put a pressure gage on your system and see what it's running. Around here, it varies from 30-70 lbs or so with 40-60 most common on well systems. Second, I'd check your supply line size. It should be 3/4" or bigger if you're at the end of the line. If the pressure or pipe size isn't in this range, you might want to look at changing them.

If they are within this range, close and open the supply valve a couple of times and make sure it functions correctly. Sometimes rust and scale breaks loose in the mainlines and it can clog valves. If the valve works fine and you have metal plumbing, it's possible scale is building up inside your homes plumbing and restricting flow. I've seen scale in 3/4" lines reduce the flow to almost nothing.

Just some ideas to work with, hope they help.

 

[Varmintmist]

Call a plumber to check out your stuff. If its good, then start the prossess with the water co. with verified info that the pressure is substandard.

As long as it isnt a problem in the house..

You can try to file a PUC complaint if you are not getting anywhere with the water co.

If they cant do anything, then go to your local guys who will be up for reelection, and the not so local guys. County, state, whatever.

Other option is to drill a well.

There is no way I would spend big bucks trying to fix a service that I was already paying for and was not delivered.

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

Caddy,

Does the water main in the street have any fire hydrants on it? If it does, ask the water department to conduct a water flow test. That will give you what the flow and pressure in the street i.e. static pressure ( no water flowing), residual pressure ( with water flowing) and gpm. If the pressure is as bad in the street as in your house then you know the city supply is bad and you can start looking for other options as others have outlined above.

If the results are poor on the city water main, I would also contact the Fire Department. Perhaps they can put pressure on the water department and more important they will know not to connect to the fire hydrants and call for a tanker task force ( call all surrounding towns) should a fire occur at your house or neighbors. Minimum flow the fire department is looking for is 500 gpm at 20 psi. If you have that in the street, you should have more then enough for your household needs. Then you know the problem is between the city main and your house.

Another question to ask the water department is to check to make sure all valves are open on your street and water mains feeding your neighborhood. Do the neighbors have low water pressure? What are they doing about it? The more people that complain perhaps they will act. I would also get the mayor and city council involved if it turns out the city water main is weak. If anything you are putting them on notice that if a fire occurs legal action will result.

 

[ByronBob]

They sell 80 and 120 gallon retention tanks for us well water users which stand up in your basement much like an air compressor tank does. I'll include a picture of the tank for you.

My beef with all of this like others have said is the fact your getting no real support from the W/A. They should at least check the water pressures in the street as a benchmark. It it's low in the street then their might be some legal ramifications for them.

Do you know if your neighbors are in the same situation?