A couple of months ago the San Francisco water department sent an inspector over to tell us all about how we could reduce our water usage and in the process they tested our water pressure, which turned out to be 100 psi. The maximum recommended pressure is 75psi and apparently higher pressures not only increase the cost of a leak but degrades equipment (such as aerators and efficient shower heads) hooked up to it, so we needed to have a pressure regulator installed on our main water line. In addition to the need to do that, one of the first things we discovered about our plumbing is that there is a hose faucet by our garage door which is actually attached to the line below the main shutoff valve for our house. Naturally this faucet leaked whenever it was turned on, but to replace it the water to the whole house would need to be turned off.
Combining these two problems was convenient and led to replacing this whole section of amateur plumbing with my own amateur plumbing:
This is the section I soldered together to add some new shutoff valves and a pressure regulator:
Here’s the above bit attached to the water main:
Here’s the bit of pipe for the hose faucet:
And finally that bit attached to the wall by the garage door:
