Would Gardena hose fittings reduce apparent water pressure?

[boyscout]

After seeing them in a photo of @Cate&Rob's plumbing I just installed Gardena quick-connect hose fittings throughout the water system of our trailer.

https://www.gardena.com/ca-en/produc...hose-fittings/

Hoses, water inlets, regulator, everywhere. Then I turned on city water for the first time ever in this trailer.

Pressure coming out of the kitchen and bathroom taps seemed pretty anemic compared to our Reflection. Shower not bad - maybe the head does a good job with low pressure.

I fiddled until dark. At first I thought something had gone wrong with the pressure regulator, which I'd left months ago at 45 but it was now reading 80. Adjusted it all over the map, and eventually briefly took it out completely. City water pressure is good, probably at least 80. Took out the brand new filter, back on full-pressure city water. No change, still very anemic tap performance.

It got dark before I could remove the $90 worth of Gardena fittings I'd just installed everywhere. The inside diameter of the Gardena fittings is quite a bit smaller than the hoses I'm using. Could they be reducing apparent pressure / flow?

If not, what else could be going on? Has GD started using different bathroom / kitchen taps with tight flow restrictors in them?

[Cate&Rob]

Hi Mark,

The “flow stop” quick connects will reduce water flow. One or two inline will not be noticeable, but if you have more than this, they can reduce flow. The non flow stop connectors are more open. A water pressure gauge would help to diagnose your problem. Flow restriction will not affect static water pressure. If pressure drops significantly as soon as you open a faucet, you have too much restriction in the system.

Rob

[CWSWine]

I have never liked those, these are the ones I have been using and they are straight through without restricting flow. The big negative is cost.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Banjo-GHFT075...8JWZBFJ06GY9RY

[boyscout]

Hi Mark, The “flow stop” quick connects will reduce water flow. One or two inline will not be noticeable, but if you have more than this, they can reduce flow. The non flow stop connectors are more open. A water pressure gauge would help to diagnose your problem. Flow restriction will not affect static water pressure. If pressure drops significantly as soon as you open a faucet, you have too much restriction in the system. Rob

Thanks Rob. I have mostly flow-stop. I bought three packaged sets for $25 per not knowing there were two types and a couple more that turned out to be non-flow-stop (I thought they were manufacturing fails). Ouch. A fool and his money... Oh well, my wife likes them for gardening.

When trying to figure it out last night at worst there were four of them and the regulator inline. At best there were two with no regulator and (briefly) full pressure. However the faucets seemed to be doing the same thing no matter what I did outside.

Off to buy a pressure gauge. The one on the regulator seems to have taken LSD; eight months old.

And I thought trailering was going to be an inexpensive way to escape winter!

[boyscout]

Hi Mark,

The “flow stop” quick connects will reduce water flow. One or two inline will not be noticeable, but if you have more than this, they can reduce flow. The non flow stop connectors are more open. A water pressure gauge would help to diagnose your problem. Flow restriction will not affect static water pressure. If pressure drops significantly as soon as you open a faucet, you have too much restriction in the system.

Rob

Hi Rob,

I got a pressure meter yesterday. Pressure from the house seems very strong, but it reads only 55psi.

Removing ALL of the Gardena fittings does not change pressure (as expected) and doesn't improve flow at kitchen and bathroom taps much either, a barely-noticeable difference. I'm now guessing that restrictors in the taps are the culprit, but have also concluded that we can live with the lower flow (and longer-lasting gray tanks). The difference from the Reflection - which had good strong flow from those taps - was what made me think something was wrong with the system.

Something does seem to be wrong with my pressure regulator though, one of those good T-shaped adjustable ones with gauge. When I was first fiddling it had way-high readings, and adjusting it was bringing all sorts of unpredictable readings. With the new pressure gauge yesterday I fiddled more and found that it had settled down to predictably showing readings that where about 40psi higher than actual pressure according to the new pressure gauge, so I set it at 80psi and left it. Looked at it yesterday, it accurately read 40psi!

The regulator is eight months old. It's been sitting dry for four months. Is it garbage? Is it working now 'cause it's been soaked? Should it be stored in water? Why is the sky blue?

Thanks Rob.

[Cate&Rob]

Mi Mark,

Good to learn that the Gardena connectors don't create too much flow restriction in back-to-back tests with/without. I have always meant to do this but never got around to it.

The gauges on the pressure regulators are rather "fragile" things and are not very expensive. I would try a new gauge before throwing away the whole regulator. Better gauges are glycerine filled (mostly to damp needle vibration) . . . but I don't know if you have to go that far. There are several gauge choices in the plumbing and air tool sections at Princess Auto (Princess Auto? . . . it's a Canadian thing )

About storing the regulator wet or dry . . . I have no idea. You might try running a little plumbing antifreeze through it before storing. This stuff is safe for plumbing components and has seal lubricating additives that are not toxic.

Rob

[powerscol]

Remember when you adjust the regulator some flow needs to be occurring. Also for the faucets you have issues with, take the end off and check the screens and look for a flow restrictor. My screens plugged the first day out and I plan to drill out the flow restrictor based on what I learned from other threads.

[Steve7]

Could it be as simple as sawdust in the faucet screens? As Powerscol suggests...

[boyscout]

Remember when you adjust the regulator some flow needs to be occurring. Also for the faucets you have issues with, take the end off and check the screens and look for a flow restrictor. My screens plugged the first day out and I plan to drill out the flow restrictor based on what I learned from other threads.

Thanks, water was flowing while adjusting. It was NOT flowing when the gauge moved itself overnight from 80lbs to 40lbs.

I plan to check screens / restrictors on the taps. However as I wrote recently, the more I fiddled with this the more I decided I'd live with the lower flow from these faucets (longer lasting gray tanks). I was concerned at first because it was so DIFFERENT from our Reflection and thought it might indicate a problem.