Fashion Industry Forum

Just finished the second call this summer where the complaint was "My grass is dying, the heads don't have enough pressure, please come fix"

My gauges indicate a good static pressure but a large dynamic pressure loss between the meter and the sprinkler tee off point.

Usually homes in this area have that terrible design where the PRV is located before the sprinkler tee off, and of course it's a crappy contractor grade unit that frequently dies.

But the PRV looks new and sounds fine, meter sounds fine.....I look at the meter valve and it's HALF CLOSED!

"oh, I just had the plumbers out here replacing the PRV" or working on the water softener, etc...

Open the meter and everything is fixed.

Plumbers.....

The worst one was last year, residential. The plumbers had just installed a new water softener, tied into the water line before the sprinkler tie in, ran 1/2" pex 50' to the garage softener, then ran it all the way back to just ahead of their first tie in point, thus putting the entire sprinkler system on softener water at a huge pressure loss. oh, and they cracked the 3/4 brass shut off valve when digging, causing a leak, the cause of the complaint.

Plumbers.....

Back in May, I went to a long time customers house for a low pressure complaint. PRV in the ground was bad. I ask him about his house water, and he says that he's had barely any house pressure since the plumbers installed a new water softener. I check it out. Sitting on the exit line is a shiney new PRV! So this guy now has TWO PRVs in line, a broken one and new one, on his house water. Only thing I can figure is the plumbers saw the high static pressure from the failed PRV and decided the remedy was another PRV to bring it down. So the dynamic pressure was now like 15psi in his house from the 110 at the street. I tell him to call the plumbers back out to take off the new PRV and go stick it in the ground. So he calls them. They say NO.

wtf? Plumbers.....

In March I get called out to a low sprinkler pressure problem. Customers states that she has had the water company out AND TWO PLUMBERS, and they all said it was a sprinkler problem. Being a non idiot, I put my gauges on various places and determine that the dynamic loss is before the sprinkler tee off. There's an old gate valve and a PRV there. I open up the gate valve, which had vibrated closed (I'm assuming). Problem solved.

Plumbers, amirite?