Who is correct - my plumber or the water softener engineer?

[impreza280]

Hi - I'm seeking some impartial opinion on whether a fault with my water softener has been caused by a faulty part or whether it has been caused by my plumbing system.

To cut a long story short, my house is 5 years old and has a pressurised water system with a Megaflo. My incoming water pressure is about 2.2 bar. Earlier this year, the plastic blend valve broke on my water softener causing a serious flood. The engineer replaced it and it happened again 3 months later.

There are 2 possibilities: The plastic part is not up to the job. Or my plumber should have fitted a shock arrester somewhere near the water softener. Either way it begs the question, why didn't it happen sooner?
My main concern is to prevent it happening again. What do you think is the most likely cause of the problem?

 

[JohnD]

The other possibility is that you have unusually high water pressure at times (it usually goes up at night).

I rather suspect the plastic part is not up to the job, but what do i know?

If we accept that the plastic part is unable to cope with the pressure (I don't know about the shock factor) then it seems to me you have to get the load capacity of the part and the max pressure of the water to be the same. My softener also has plastic parts, but they've never failed. You may not be able to get brass or stainless parts to fit.

A pressure reducing valve should do the trick. About £30 retail or half that on fleabay. Some of them come with an integral pressure valve so you can see if the pressure is unusually high at times.

p.s. I don't know what a blend valve is. If you can lay your hands on the softener installation instructions they should say what pressure the softener can cope with, and if it needs anything to control it (I haven't got anything, my pressure valve is downstream of the softener, on a shower).

If the instructions say an arrestor is required, and one wasn't fitted, then you can blame the installer.

If the instructions don't say an arrestor is required, then perhaps the mender is looking for excuses - but if he says you need one, best to fit it.

 

[Agile]

The pressure valve on reducing valves only show the output pressure not the supply pressure.

A shock arrestor is quite likely to be needed if you have lever water valves and like to "flick" them to off.

I would have expected the conditioner to say its rated to 10 BAR inlet but when the plastic gets old then...

Often mains water goes up to 2 to 3 times the pressure at night but not usually to five times!

Tony