"Ken Moiarty" wrote in message
...
This thread keeps getting harder for me to believe! But a tentative
picture is beginning to form in my mind that there's some kind of
"culture" gap at play between myself and you guys here. If I was rude to
anyone, I apologize since I'm beginning to see I may have put a wrong
construction on some of the remarks made here. Edwin, you're not American
are you? With that smart-ass remark you initially made I had assumed you
were (which goes to perceived connotation, believe it or not).

Yes, I am in the US. As for my wise ass comments, you asked for opinions
and I offered one. If you don't want to hear what I have to say, don't ask.
No, I'm not a bully at hte keyboard, this is wha I am in real life.


"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote...
I don't know exactly what psi my street's
water main is at. But I do know the pressure in it far exceeds that which
reaches my plumbing fixtures.

OK, this means there is either a PRV (pressure reducing valve) or s ome sort
of restriction. Unless you check actual pressure with a gauge, you can't be
100% sure of anything in finding hte problem.


By the same token, I also know that all the
1/2" copper pipes that feed these fixtures are connected to larger
diameter (3/4") intermediate pipes ("pipes" in plural as I'm referring to
both the hot and cold, respectively) which are at a higher psi, being that
it is *less decreased* removed from in the street than is the psi in the
smaller diameter 1/2" pipes.

For that to occur, the flow rate has to be very high. 1/2" is a common size
feed in residential use and at the fixture 3/8" or 1/4" is common. The 1/2"
feeding them is very adequate.



If your feed from the street is corroded, you may get better flow by
replacing it, but putting in a section of larger pipe will do nothing.

I never implied I was intending to "put in a section" of larger pipe.
(The statement in my original post, "if properly done", was meant to
assure the knowledgeable reader of my awareness here such as to preclude
any such unnecessary confusion.)


If you want to increase the pressure, the first step is to find what
pressure is at the street. Then you compare that to your house. If they
are the same, nothing you do will increase it.

Everyone around these parts expects that the pressure at the street is
going to be a lot higher than the pressure in the house is permitted to
be. I've never heard of both being the same. Certainly no place where
I've lived (in Canada, of course) have these been the same. What is it
that makes one so automatically presume that mine would be? Or that in
presuming that these are the same in my case, that I must therefore
necessarily be to oblivious to the obvious futility of any effort to get
more pressure than is there to tap into?

In my last three houses, and in the two bildings I mantain, the inside
pressure is the same as the street, except for locations wehre we've
intellionally reduced it. Since on of the building sis our prductin
facility, we have a fewgausges so we can monitor this. We also have a self
contained recirculation system that we maintain at 80 psi with pumps.





It's not going to be 110 psi at my shower since it has to go through
reductions in pipe diameter.

No, this is where you are getting confused.

Herein lies the rub: The less reduction in pipe diameter after the main
supply line, the greater (i.e. closer to the original 110 psi) the
pressure. Hence my rationale for replacing the 1/2" diameter shower
feeding runs (that currently branch from the central 3/4" lines they are
tied into), with 3/4" runs instead.

It still comes back to flow. Increasing the pipe diameter is not going to
increase the pressure if the pipes are restricted in any way or if the flow
is not controlled. Take a look at your garden hose. If you have an open
end, turn the water on full flow, the water may come out at about 3 feet
from the end of the hose. Put a nozzle on the end. Now, you have the same
pressure in the hose as before, but with a restriction in the tip, you can
shoot out a stream for maybe 20 feet. Note that the open hose will, though,
fill a bucket much faster.

This takes us full circle back to my original suggestion that you may get
more satisfaction in your shower by changing the head, not the pipes feeding
it.