Today I had a very unpleasant experience in Draper, UT. I had a customer that did not fully understand water pressure not only for his water softener, but for his whole house. To make a long story short – three years ago I sold this customer a water softener and installed it. When I installed it I verified the water pressure of the home to be within the operating parameters of the water softener which it was at 60 lbs PSI. I also explained the warranty and the exclusions of the warranty to the customer as well, but apparently he did not understand. Therefore, I am writing this article and posting it my website and hopefully it will help because I lost a very valuable customer today and all for a misunderstanding.
So here is how water pressure works: Every home should have a water pressure regulator just like the one shown in the picture. Water first flows through a shutoff valve and then through one of these pressure regulators. The pressure regulator regulates the pressure down from the 140 – 150 lbs PSI that is at the street to anywhere from 25 – 75lbs PSI. Your home should never have more water pressure than this. All of the plumbing in your home and every water using appliance should never see water pressure greater than 75 PSI. The water pressure regulator is part of the plumbing in your home and not part of any water softener or appliance. It should be known that pressure regulators wear out over time and the truth is that I have seen them go out and stop working in a home that is only 5 years old and I have also seen them wear out in 20 years. There is no way that any water softener company can keep track of and manage the water pressure in your home every single day and therefore water pressure is always an exclusion to any water softener warranty. It is always the responsibility of the homeowner to manage and maintain the water pressure in their homes.
What so often happens is that these water pressure regulators fail and when they do the water pressure in your home can rise to 150lbs PSI and split water heaters, water softeners, reverse osmosis systems or even blow apart plumbing joints causing serious damage and a lot of remodeling in some cases. Whatever is the weakest link in your plumbing that is what will give out first. This is what happened in the case with this customer. He blamed me for his pressure regulator failing which split a filter housing and did some damage to some drywall and I did not even install his pressure regulator!
We recommend installing a water pressure gage in your plumbing and in a lot of cases we install them so homeowners can maintain and manage their water pressure. If your pressure regulator is looks old or if you know it is over 10 years old, I would just replace it and save yourself a headache down the road and possibly a serious remodeling project.
If you are a Royal Water Systems customer and you have us change your filters, your water pressure is checked every time we do a filter change for you just as a courtesy. It would surprise you how many times we find high water pressure and replace a pressure regulator right there on the spot for our customers before any damage is done to their home or their water softener system.
Sam Nielsen
Royal Water Systems
855-763-8637