Can house water pressure be at 100 psi without any issues?
With the water pressure in our home, we should always pay extra attention to the amount present. Certain levels of water pressure will cause damage to our home’s plumbing system. Situations where the water pressure is high will be concerning. Such as a situation where house water pressure at 100 psi.
House water pressure at 100 psi
If your water pressure reaches 100 psi your house will suffer from plumbing problems. A house’s water pressure should never reach this level. If it does, we will soon have pipes going loose and wearing out.
Though this can take a little bit longer to take hold, it’s still not something to ignore. With the water pressure’s effects on the home being so high, let’s check what the maximum water pressure should be. [1]
Maximum household water pressure
Some important measurements should stay consistent in your household. Along the most important ones, is that we have proper water pressure in the household. This important measurement will make sure our pipes last
Though pressure within the household can vary, there are certain measurements that are expected and a maximum that we shouldn’t go over. The normal level of water pressure should be around 60 psi. [2]
The house itself should be able to regulate pressure. Keeping it from a higher limit. However, there will be cases where the water pressure will exceed the 60 psi mark. This is fine, there is still some leeway before we get into critical territory.
The highest our water pressure should go is 80 psi. Once that level is reached, we will end up with a compromised water system. The pipelines will wear out from the strain put on them and our appliances will end up damaged.
Recommended water pressure 2 story house
The size of the house will impact the water pressure that’s allowed in our home. Allowed pressure is between 60 to 70 psi for a two-story house. This limit is also something we should stick to.
With the size of our house, there is also an extra concern about maintaining pipework. As you can imagine, it will have far more pipes which result in generally more maintenance. The more time goes on the more maintenance will be required too so pay more attention to the water pressure.
How to adjust water pressure in house?
Once the water pressure goes over a certain limit, we need to pay extra attention to addressing the problem. Though the worrisome factors remain, we can act on them and adjust water pressure ourselves.
The change in pressure is important because leaving the pressure unadjusted until things go bad will cause far tougher problems.
- Water test
Consistently checking the water pressure is quite fruitful. It allows us to get ahead of the problem by reading the current state of water pressure. After we read the current state of pressure, we can easily resolve the problem through other solutions given below.
The act consists of simply reading the test gauge. It directly states the result on the reader. However, that’s not all. Some systems will not have the test gauge which is thankfully easy to obtain. It’s about 10 dollars and can be easily mounted. [3]
- Call the water department
Another way to act is by contacting the water department. The requirement is that your home is connected to the city water supply. If you are, it’s possible to have them check if there is a particular issue that’s affecting your home.
This check can help reduce the potential sources of this issue, it will reassure us that the problem doesn’t come from the main water pipe.
That leaves the water supply at our home as the main culprit, which will make it easier to resolve the issue. Knowing where to look for problems cuts down the general time it takes to solve our problems.
- Turn the pressure-reducing valve
The next step, after we’ve isolated the issue to our water supply, is to actually reduce the pressure. This will be quite easy with the pressure-reducing valve. The pressure-reducing valve can be found on the main water supply pipe.
The appearance of this component is that of a conical-shaped valve next to the water meter. Right next to the point where the water pipe enters the house. [4]
The top of this item has a threaded bolt that can be used to manipulate pressure. Raising pressure requires us to loosen the bolt’s locking nut and turn it clockwise.
The pressure gauge can be used to measure the general water pressure in our home as we do this. Once the pressure reaches decent measurements, secure the valve.
Is 70 psi too high for water pressure?
Not quite. Though the preferred amount of water pressure is 60 psi, going up to 70 psi will not induce particular damage to the game.
The water pressure will keep working properly for the household even if we go a bit over this amount. The true worrisome limit is the 80 psi mark. If you end up going over it, we will have some serious issues.
The limit between 60 and 80 psi can be somewhat worrisome if it spikes suddenly. However, if it changes over a normal period of time, what we have is a natural change in water pressure happening. The sudden surge of it overnight might be a particular concern though.
Water pressure increases overnight
Sometimes, a sharp change in water pressure can be concerning. The most common example is the water pressure increasing overnight. The change can be quite impactful to our household if we already have high water pressure as is.
However, there is a reason why water pressure increases overnight. Simply put, it’s because we use far less water during the night. The water still forms pressure though it doesn’t flow. The water pressure can get even higher if we leave our water heater on during the evening. With the extra heat, the water and pipes will expand which causes extra pressure.
However, these aren’t the only causes of your water pressure rising overnight. The household may also have issues with the pressure-reducing valve. This component does exactly what its name states, reducing pressure as it accumulates within our pipes.
It’s especially useful for sudden shifts of pressure that happen during certain periods of the day. With the extra attention paid to it all, we can easily reduce pressure before issues appear.
Do keep in mind that there is a possibility that the valve may be completely absent. In this situation, we should get and install the said valve. Otherwise, we will end up without such an immediate way of taking care of water pressure. [5]
So with that in mind, reaching 100 psi overnight will lead to worrying effects on our house. If this keeps happening night after night, it’s a worrisome thing that we have to act upon as fast as possible. Apply all of the pressure-resolving problems if this does crop up.
Conclusion
The house water pressure reaching 100 psi is a worrisome thing to happen to our household. As we saw, the maximum water pressure we should have is 80 psi. Even this is somewhat high as the normal amount of pressure is between 60 and 70 psi.
The more our water pressure spikes, the higher the chances of something bad happening to the household.
Solving the problem can be done with multiple actions. The more of these actions you take the lower the possible sources of these issues. That way, we will end up with a much clearer picture of where the problem is.
Applying a couple of them can also resolve the issue before we even suffer certain problems associated with water pressure.
Michael Davis is a heating & plumbing expert who currently works as independent contractor in SC. He also writes for Plumbertip.
For almost 10 years he worked on various plumbing tasks across South Carolina.