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Aug 10, 2023

How to Increase Water Pressure

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Simple steps to deal with low flow from a municipality or a well.

When showerheads in your home are weak, water dribbles out of faucets, and the washing machine takes forever to fill, the problem could be low water pressure. This is a relatively common plumbing problem that can be caused by any number of things ranging from clogged pipes in a municipal water system to worn out components in a private water well. The good news is that in most cases the problem can be corrected with a minimal investment of time or money.

It helps to have a basic understanding of pressure and flow before you disassemble plumbing and run all kinds of complex tests, or place calls to plumbers, the city water department, or a well contractor. The terms are inter-related, but not identical. Pressure is the force water exerts measured (in this case) in pounds per square inch. Flow is the rate that water moves, (in this case) measured in gallons per minute.

Your home may have the pressure it needs, but still suffer from low flow. How? Blockage. Corrosion and mineral scale buildup on the inside of pipes prevents the water from getting where it needs to go.

We use that as the simplest illustration to describe the complex interaction that occurs within your plumbing system and the water source that supplies it, whether it's a well or a city water system.

Read on for a few simple tests that you can run to get to the bottom of the problem.

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Low water pressure is considered any reading that's less than about 40 pounds of pressure per square inch (PSI). For most homes, the water pressure should be between 40 and 60 PSI, with 50 PSI being ideal. Here's a quick, accurate way to calculate the water pressure in your home:

Purchase a pressure gauge, which will run you about $10. Tighten the gauge's female threaded fitting onto an outdoor garden-hose faucet. Check to make sure that all the valves closest to the water meter are fully opened (in the case of a well system, this would be valves closest to the home's pressure tank). Next, open the hose faucet all the way and read the water pressure on the gauge's needle dial. If it reads less than 40 PSI, then your home has low water pressure.

Water flow is measured as a rate, a quantity divided by a unit of time (pressure does not depend on time). If the demand for water exceeds the amount that the system can supply, then it may seem as if your home has low water pressure, when it might not.

This example may help you understand this. Say your home has a water supply that can produce about 10 gallons of water per minute. That's fine, unless the washing machine is on and using 5 GPM, someone's showering and using 3 GPM, and the dishwasher is running at 4 GPM, resulting in a demand of 12 gallons of water per minute. In this scenario, the 10-GPM water-supply system isn't able to keep up with demand, resulting in the appearance of low water pressure. Here's how to check your home's water flow rate:

Start by making sure all faucets and water-using appliances in the house are turned off. Then, connect a garden hose to an outdoor faucet and line up three empty five-gallon buckets. Now, turn the water on full blast and start filling the buckets. Stop after 60 seconds and measure how much water you’ve captured in the buckets. If you filled two-and-half buckets, then your home's water flow rate is about 12-1/2 GPM.

The average household uses 100 to 120 gallons of water per person per day, so an ideal flow rate would be 6 to 12 GPM. Now, that you have an understanding of water pressure and flow rate, let's take a look at three ways to solve water-delivery problems.

If your home is connected to city water, call your municipal water department and ask them to check the water pressure coming from the street into your house. They’ll run a pressure test—often at no charge to you—to confirm that adequate pressure is being delivered. If they find no problem with the main water pipe, then the issue is in your home's water-supply system.

If you draw water from a well, and are experiencing low water pressure, call a well contractor to inspect the well pump and the expansion tank, which pressurizes the water once it's pumped from the well into the house.Fortunately, in most cases you won't have to drill a new well or even replace its pump. In some cases, well contractors can install a large pressurized holding tank that acts as a reservoir inside the house so that the home's water supply can meet demand when the well itself is unable to do so. A good tutorial on this is available through Penn State's Cooperative Extension system.

A quick and easy way to increase water pressure (for homes supplied by a municipal water system) is to adjust the pressure-reducing valve, which can be found on the main water-supply pipe; look for a conical-shaped valve next to the water meter, close to where the main water pipe enters the house.

Protruding from the top of the valve is a threaded bolt. To raise pressure, loosen the bolt's locking nut, then turn the bolt clockwise. Use the pressure gauge to determine when you reach a water pressure around 50 PSI. Then, tighten the locknut to secure the valve.With homes supplied by a well, you (or a well contractor) may be able to adjust the cut-in and cut-out pressure for the pressure tank and well pump, increasing the pressure of the water supply in the process. By adjusting for higher system pressure overall, the well's pump will cycle more frequently, and you will experience an increase in electricity use, but you will have higher water pressure inside the house.

When all other methods to increase water pressure have failed, hire a licensed plumbing contractor or well contractor to install a water-pressure booster pump. These compact, but powerful, electric pumps are cut into the water-supply line where they turbo-charge the incoming pressure and raise it to the proper level.

Note that booster pumps come in a wide variety sizes and styles, and range in price from about $100 to over $700.

Increasing water pressure is sometimes a trial-and-error process. You may find that when you take steps to increase pressure, that suddenly the home's plumbing is noisier than it was before, especially at a washing machine or dishwasher equipped with valves that open and close to control water flow. The water may slam into the closed valve, producing a loud hammering noise. This phenomenon is called water hammer and occurs at appliances and right-angle bends in the plumbing. Aside from fine tuning the home's water pressure, you may need to install a water hammer arrestor, essentially a shock absorber for a plumbing system. If you’re handy and have basic plumbing skills, you can install one of these. Otherwise, you’ll have to hire a plumber.

Joe is a former carpenter and cabinetmaker who writes extensively about remodeling, woodworking, and tool techniques. He has written eight books and is a contributing editor to Popular Mechanics. He also appears on the Today's Homeowner TV show, and co-hosts the weekly Today's Homeowner Radio Show. Joe writes from his home in Roxbury, Connecticut.

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