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Does anyone else have experience with booster pumps? I bought a booster pump for my RODI about two months ago. The booster pump is working well (PSI over 60), but it vibrates so badly that all the pipes in the house resonate. I can hear the vibrations in every room of a 3000 ft house. Is this normal? Is it just the way these pumps work, or is something wrong? Please help -- my whole family is complaining... Thanks, Matt
Does it sound like the pipes are coming out of the walls? or is it more like a loud humm? If you look you will find that most of the time that you have noise in the pipes it has somthing to do with one of the valves that the water has to go through to get to the pump. sometimes you will find one not open all the way or sometimes its the washer in the valve has gone bad or starting to go bad and fluttering in the water.
I just wanted to tell you why they Humm sometimes... It forgot the words... just kidding
That was good. Got a chuckle out of that one
yes. It is a low (but very noticable) hum - no lyrics! Connected to cold water line through a peircing saddle valve. I think the vibrations are being conducted through the water itself as I have padded and weighted the RO tubing that leads to the copper pipe and padded the pipe itself. Both did little or nothing to help. I am wondering if all booster pumps are like this or if I have a bad one. Or, as you said, I have a bad valve or something.
that saddle valve might be the trouble. they just make a pin hole in the pipe and that might be to small to get enough water. You might want to get an adapter to hook it to the sink and try it and see if its better. If it fixes it then you will need to have the saddle valve replaced with a regular stop valve.
Is it hard plumbed? In other words, copper tubing(vibrations can transmit through copper lines). You might install a double angle stop (one to faucet and one to pump) and use a vinyl supply line to insulate the vibrations.
I'm not sure I understand -- it is currently plumbed with the plastic 1/4" RO tubing through a brass piercing saddle valve into the copper pipe. Can you explain your suggestion in simpler terms for the plumbing-challenged?
Ok, The plastic tubing should insulate any vibrations from the pump. Back to the piercing valve vibrating for whatever reason or to much water flow through the 1/4" line. Is this connection under a sink?
let me try to explain how a piercing valve can make this noise. If you take a garder hose and open the valve just a little. You will see the hose fill up and try to straighten itself out due to the water pressure. then when you open the spray valve you will feel the hose start to go back to the way it was before you turned on the water. then if you stop spraying the hose straightens out again.if you open the valve all the way when you spray with it the hose stays straightened out.the movement of the hose is due to the pressure of the water going up and down in the hose. the pump here sucks water then it spits water. it does this 60 times a second. so at 60 times a second the pressure in the plastic hose is going up and down. this makes the pipes move just like the hose did. so the faster the water is able to get in the hose the less the pressure will go up and down. the less the pressure changes the less the movement of the hose.
Well, although I understand what you guys are saying about the small hole from the piercing valve, I think something is wrong with the pump. I've been emailing Buckeye Field Supply and he pinged the manufacturer -- from the info I got back, something is way out of whack for the amount of noise I am getting out of the pump. I actually tried it pulling water out of a 5gl bucket instead of the water pipe and the level of vibration was pretty much unchanged. So, I'll figure out what to do from here with BFS. I am just happy to know that this is abnormal and that I don't have to live with this level of noise throughout the house. Thanks for the help and I'll let you know how it turns out... Matt
Aquatec 8800?
Well, you guys were right...it was the needle valve. After working through a bunch of trouble shooting stuff with Russ from Buckeye(and yes, its an Aquatec 8800) I tried one last thing -- I broke down and soldered in a new dedicated copper T-connector and...presto! About 50x quieter -- can't hear it on the other side of the drywall in the basement. It was like having a splinter pulled out of my finger after 6 weeks. I actually sat in silence upstairs for about a half hour (and three beers) to enjoy it. I was positive it was the pump and would not have gone to the trouble of busting out the torch and solder without the input here. I would have paid to ship it back to Russ just to have him find out the pump was fine. Thanks guys
If you want to know what a plumber would have called that. They would have said that the pipe was "hammering".
If you want to know what my wife called that -- we'd need an NC17-rated board!
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