Calgary water pressure

[RobertScott]

Hi Brett, small world. This is the first time I have looked at this site in a long time, and I too am in Calgary, in Evergreen. I was checking water pressure at our house when I put in the sprinkler system and found that depending on the time of day, the pressure was between 55 and 65 psi at the outside hose bib. We also have an adjustable regulator, so I could crank it up if need be, I suspect you likely have one too?

[Delphinus]

When I bypassed the regulator for my RO/DI, I figured I might as well do the outside sprinklers as well since those impulse guys work better at higher pressures.

Anyhow without the regulator, my pressure is right up around 100 (I'm in Evergreen as well). It varies between 96 to 104. The RO/DI works perfectly at this pressure. I recommend this bypass approach since it doesn't involve changing the pressure for the rest of the house, which is probably a good thing (especially if you have shower taps that only adjust temperature, not flowrate. Nothing like a supersonic jetstream shower! )

[hillegom]

There is a caveat if you up the house pressure. Get those expensive stainless steel hoses for your washing machine! Or at the very least, shut them off when you go on vacation.

[Delphinus]

OR ... you could .. I dunno if this has been suggested or not yet, but if not .. my suggestions is .... bypass the regulator for your RO/DI and leave the rest of the house on the regulator!

Rak! Polly want a cracker!

[mike31154]

In Vernon my outdoor faucets are on City pressure (measured around 120 psi static and 100 with faucet on) and I have a PRV inside the house to bring that down. I didn't like the pathetic pressure at my kitchen sink, need a little more oomph when rinsing stuff, so I looked up the info on PRVs and adjusted mine so I have just under 90 psi for the indoor stuff. It drops to about 86 psi and holds relatively steady around there whenever any tap is running. Not sure what type of regulators some of you are referring to, maybe some are fixed pressure, not adjustable and need to be bypassed entirely if you want more pressure somewhere. The PRV however is fairly easy to adjust and I believe even at full throttle, limits the output pressure to a pre determined value depending on the model you have. A wrench, a pressure guage and you're in business. The PRV has a strainer in it as well, which should be cleaned periodically.

I believe my PRV is a Watts Series 25AUB-Z3. I found a pdf document online with installation instructions etc... Great info in that file including different installation options, typical, series, parallel....

EDIT: Just checked and confirmed I have a model 25AUB which is apparently adjustable from 25 to 75 psi. Makes me wonder how I'm getting better than 80 psi downstream. Either inaccurate guages or surges exceeding the 75 psi limit??