Pressure Regulators - Protect Your Home's Plumbing From Excessive Water Pressure!

Often overlooked and undervalued, Pressure Regulators protect your home's plumbing from excessive water pressure that can damage pipes and cause expensive repairs later on. Excessive water pressure can cause toilets to run, water hammer in the walls and ceilings, shorten the lifespan of water heaters and washing machines and cause premature wear on gaskets and seals. A Pressure Regulator, if properly installed and adjusted, can eliminate these problems and allow you to get the most out of your home's plumbing system.

Essentially, a regulator is a spring-loaded valve that reduces inlet pressure to outlet pressure through the feedback from a control element. This control element can be either a diaphragm or piston (although in most applications, a diaphragm is preferred due to its superior sensing abilities). The control knob adjusts the force on the loading mechanism which then changes the amount of pressure it applies to the sensing eleme,nt. The change in force is transmitted to the orifice, changing its size and thus reducing the inlet pressure.

In most single-stage regulators a large drop in the inlet pressure will result in a small increase in the outlet pressure, this is known as supply pressure effect or inlet dependency. In order to avoid this, two-stage regulators are used, which utilize a second stage that is not subject to these large fluctuations.

Another method of reducing supply pressure effect is by using a balanced poppet design. This reduces the area on which the high inlet pressure can act and decreases the force required to shut off the valve completely, lowering over-pressure requirements.