Ken Moiarty wrote:

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). I see I really should have not
cross-posted to so many groups, otherwise I could have better anticipated
what part of the world someone was responding from (e.g. the U.K. in
free.uk.trade.plumbing, dah!). Yet it may not just be connotations that are
getting misinterpreted here. It must be technical things too. If it's not
that then it's either, you guys are all crazy, or (even less likely) I am
crazy; scenarios both of which seem to me at this time to be less than
highly probable.

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote...

[...] Increasing the pipe size will NOT increase the pressure. Can't
happen. Won't happen. Put in a 6" pipe and you won't get any more
pressure


If you want to put it that way, nor will 'moving into a bigger house
increase my income'! I didn't quite mean it the way you have apparently
understood me to be speaking. 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. 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.

Now I will stop here, and wait for feedback as to just this little bit,
before I continue to to finish trying to communicate myself to you on this
as least ambiguously as I can manage.



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?


If you want a high pressure shower, move to the town that I work in. We
have 110 psi feed.



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

Ken


Hi,
I think you posted to argue, not to gather information. Simple answer to
your original question, increasing pipe diameter as you stated won't
make any difference. May make things worse. I thought water saver shower
head was a good idea. I live in Calgary in a house with 4 bath rooms.
All my plumbing is done to save water and our water is on meter.
Remember water is becoming scarce and we have to do everything to
conserve it. My son is in water conservation and waste water recycling.
According to him, the outlook is pretty grim for good water supply in
the coming years.
Sounds like you have this idea of your own and trying to justify it to
try. Then just go ahead and try and come back here to report the result.