Annoying water leak

[mreber]

I posted a message a couple of months ago regarding a water leak in my basement. Attached is a picture to help clarify everything.

Originally, there was a slow drip coming out of the short piece of vertical pipe on the left hand side. I decided to change both the pressure regulator, and the relief valve. So these are both new (about 2 months old), and guess what, there is a slow drip again coming out of that piece of pipe. About a drip every 5 seconds.

The pressure regulator is whatever the standard one is at Home Depot. It's factory set at 50 psi. I had to get the relief valve at a plumbing supply store. It's factory set at 75 psi. Is it possible that the relief valve or regulator is already failing? Like I said, these things are 2 months old.

Right now the pipe just empties onto my basement floor. I'm going to rig up some tubing to let it drain in a sink. Something's not right. I'm no plumber, but I'm pretty sure everything is installed properly...I'm fairly handy. There are no leaks anywhere else that I can see. Any ideas?

 

[johnjh2o]

If the relief valve is set for 50 PSI and the reducing valve is set for 75 PSI the relief valve is doing it's job. You need a relief valve with a higher setting. There also may be another problem. If you don't have a thermo expansion tank on your water heater the water in the heater expands when heated causing the pressure to rise beyond the rating of the relief valve. Here is some reading for you.
http://www.watts.com/pages/learnAbout/thermalExpansion.asp?catId=64

John

 

[mreber]

The relief valve is set for 75 psi and the reducing valve is set for 50 psi.

There is no thermo expansion tank installed in this system, so I guess that could be the problem.

For further clarification, this is only an intermittent problem. The drip does not occur constantly.

 

[phishfood]

It is very likely, then, that you are experiencing thermal expansion, and the vavle is doing it's job by relieasing the rising pressure.