On Mar 29, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Howard Winter wrote:


>> There does seem to be some slimy grit in the water which gets slowly
>> deposited on all the surfaces in the tank, so that may be the  
>> culprit.
>> Also, it seems that the water pressure is very high. I tried to
>> compensate by partially closing the shut-off valve and that seems to
>> help.
>
> OK, but this doesn't reduce the pressure, only the flow rate.


And if you really think it's high, you should probably check with a  
pressure meter.  They make them that fit right onto the fittings on a  
water heater without having to find some other place to measure, and  
there are some limits to how high it really should be.   A plumber can  
install a whole-house damper type device which can keep things  
reasonable so you don't have pipes blow out, or other problems from  
really high pressures.

My plumber checked my house when the new water heater was installed.   
It took about 2 seconds and he was able to tell me that my house is on  
the low side of "borderline" for high pressure during off-peak times  
in the neighborhood.  I elected to leave it alone, because we're up on  
a hill and I tend to water both front and back lawns at the same time,  
so I didn't want to make that more difficult for myself.  I'm more  
limited by flow rate, but the house pressures take a dive if both  
front and back spigots are wide open.  I asked him what the risk was,  
and he said things like valves that turn on and off "hard" will really  
bang pipes around, etc... if you get wild with them.

Hard on the system over time... but neither of us is a "slap the  
handles around" type of person.  I think if we had kids I might think  
twice before turning down the offer to install the device to bring the  
pressures in the house piping down a bit.  I forget how he said they  
actually work, but it was a number of years ago now that the water  
heater was replaced.

--
Nate Duehr
nate@natetech.com



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