How to Work Your Retic with Low Pressure

Do you have a retic system that doesn’t work correctly?

It might be because that retic needs more pressure. Check out this video where we sort out a similar issue.

The Issue

We just had a job in Maida Vale, just off Old Maida Vale Road, near the BP. It had crazy pressure, well over 1,000 kPa so a pressure limiting valve was installed. But after the owner bought the house, the guy who came to fix up the retic that wasn’t working correctly said, “Well, there’s not enough pressure to run the system.” This system was designed at over 1,000 kPa. So it worked all fine before the pressure limiting valve was installed. When the plumber’s done that back in the day, it’s limited out the retic. And so now the retic’s only half as good. It’s not getting to the lawn and everything’s dying. So she called us up and said, “What can we do about this?” The retic valve wasn’t working either. It wasn’t shutting off correctly. So we fixed up a couple things, and we’ll show you what we’ve done now.

The Solution

We’ve got the water meter just in here. We’ve removed the pressure limiting valve that was in here, had to make a bunch of fittings to get that to fit. Now we’ve moved it over here. The line came up here, and so we’ve put a little retic box in here. So this is where the pressure limiting valve sits now. That line goes from the meter straight up into the house here and goes up into the rest of the house. So now the rest of the house, all the toilets, valves, ball valves, stuff for the washing machine, dishwasher, all that’s protected now. They’re only coping 500 kPa, which is great, but now the retic and everything can still chook on.

She’s got all the retic solenoids just over here. And that went down here to a valve that was down near the front. But the trouble is the valve wasn’t working. And also, if you ever put a retic valve in, ask the retic guy that you want a master solenoid to sit straight off the valve. Because when the master solenoid shuts off, that means all the other pipes have no pressure on it and so they’re not coping it all the time. Because if you don’t have one, all that PVC pipe, if you’ve got really high pressure like this place does, you’ve got 1,000 kPas sitting on those PVCs, all the solenoids all the time. So if you’ve got one master solenoid that screws straight onto the dual check valve, then you’re all laughing.

Dual Check Valve

Here’s the dual check valve. This is a loose nut fitting, so the 25 ml solenoid can screw straight onto here. Easy to take off as well the future. All you need to do then is just hook it back on to this retic. So now when the retic shuts off, that solenoid shuts off here. And so this is the only part that’s going to have really high pressure on it. It’s a good option. So now the retic should start working again like it used to be before it was cut off.

Anyway, if you’re going to design a retic system, try and design it for the lower pressure. Then you can have that so all your solenoids don’t cop it. If you need help with something like this, give us a call. We’ll be happy to help.