Any plumbers out there?

[Royk]

Here is something I've often wondered about. Tell me if it seems right to you. I have well water and it enters the basement through 1. 25" O. D. black plastic pipe. It immediately goes to a 1" shut-off valve and then out of the valve it is reduced to 5/8 O. D. copper pipe which goes to my softener. It is again 5/8" coming out of the softener to the water heater and throughout the house.



For some reason I've always been under the impression that your hot and cold supply pipes through the house should be of a larger diameter than the feeder pipes leading to the various fixtures. Kind of like a heavy gage wire coming into your breaker panel, with smaller wires to the various branch circuits.



I was further pressed to ask that question since I bought a new softener yesterday and the installation manual says:



"In and out fittings included with the softener are 1" (nominal) copper sweat tubes. You should maintain the same, or larger, pipe size as the water supply pipe, up to the softener inlet and outlet. "



So does that confirm my theory? I figure as long as I'm sweating this thing in, now would be a good time to increase my hot and cold lines diameter. Or would that be unnecessary?



Roy

 

[RBallard]

It shouldn't be necessary. For the household your water flow isn't high. Faucets and other fixtures probably flow 5 gpm or less. The only time I have ever seen 1" pipe used in the household is for dedicated fire sprinkler piping. Residential sprinkler heads can sometimes require over 25 gpm each so the larger piping is necessary.



Hope this helps,



Bob

 

[Royk]

I was thinking that having a larger supply pipes and smaller diameter branches might help maintain pressure when more than one faucet was in use. For instance when wifey has the washing machine filling up, water pressure at the kitchen or bathroom sink is noticeably lower.



Roy

 

[B.G. Smith]

Originally posted by Royk

I was thinking that having a larger supply pipes and smaller diameter branches might help maintain pressure when more than one faucet was in use. For instance when wifey has the washing machine filling up, water pressure at the kitchen or bathroom sink is noticeably lower.



Roy

You are correct in your thinking that larger header size will help with flow when more than one faucet/outlet is on. I have 1" pipe coming into the house, then goes to 7/8" od tubing to water heater and to all drops were it reduces to 5/8" od in the walls to outlets. Still have some flow issues but not bad unless washing machine is on with hot water while taking a shower. bg

 

[outlawram]

smaller diameter will give you more pressure and larger will give you more volume. More than likely your valve on your softner is 3/4 inch so it isnt going to make any diff on if you use a one inch adapter or not. I sure hope you did not get your softner at a big box joint. You will be replacing it every three years or so. A good one will last 20 years. Hauge or Fleck valves are the best in softners.

 

[Larry Willard]

plumbing piping is mearured in inside dimensions. The 1" coming in from well is proper sized. The 5/8 (actually 1/2") is small, we use 3/4 to all but 2 fixtures on 1/2".

 

[CTait]

Hi, we have been served from our well for nearly twenty years. All of our piping is as large as possible. The pump down the well is a five horse and is on a 3 inch drop pipe, It dumps into a 2500 gal tank and has various other piping that waters a small orchard and three acres of pasture. I have it valved so that if we are watering outside we are running off of the pump pressure in the house. When we are not using water outside we run off of a one horse pump on a 20 on 40 psi off pressure switch. This one horse pump is connected to three bladder type pressure tanks. We have two inch piping to the house from the well and one inch reduced to three quarter at the water softener (Hague). My point in all this is that when people visit us and use an outside tap they invariably comment on what good water pressure we have. I always grin inside because our water pressure is actually low for the west. What we have is good volume. If you connect enough garden hoses together friction loss will become high enough that you will not get any water out the end. Having the three tanks and operating on the 20 - 40 switch saves the pump cycling on and off less than it would at a higher setting.