Autofill and Pressure loss

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fsworld

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Dec 9, 2017
18
Atlanta
Hello, our pool has an autofill that’s connected to a 1” irrigation valve with Backflow. Lately we’ve been noticing that when it turns on the water pressure in the house drops considerably and we have confirmed that it drops from about 70psi to 25ish psi.

Is there anything we can do to slow the rate the water goes into the pool so we don’t have such a huge water pressure loss?
 
Also, are you on a city/town water supply or a well? Is there a whole-house system in play like a filter or softener? That's a huge drop, though not surprising if that 1" line is at max flow and your home's supply is somehow restricted. @PoolStored can help. A quick workaround might be to restrict the auto leveler's flow to a couple of gallons per minute, about the same as a toilet tank.
 
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Here are the photos. We are on county water and it averages 90psi (we reduce it to 70psi with a PRV in the house). We have a 1” line going into the house but the pool is teed off that line prior to entering the house. We do have a whole house filter, etc but those release very little pressure at once. Even using 3 showers at a time we have plenty of pressure but manually opening the auto top off solenoid is what kills it.
 

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My thought was to install this after the siloniod to slow down the flow. I’ll see how it works but I might need to increase the time before lockout on the auto top off.

My only other solution is to hook it up to the irrigation meter but that’s not anywhere near the area (which I assume is why the pool builder didn’t do that.).
 

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fsworld said:
Do you think that’d work better than a ball valve?
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A ball valve is intended to be on or off. A ball valve only controls flow not pressure. A pressure regulator requires no more plumbing than a ball valve. A regulator will limit the maximum pressure but not flow until the set point is reached.
fsworld said:
Also any recommendation for the psi to reduce it to or a specific reducer?
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No on both. I would adjust until you get the performance you are expecting. I'm sure an autofill doesn't need a lot of pressure. 25psi?
 
You could go with a flow restrictor that passes a set number of gallons per minute regardless of pressure. E.g. 1 gal/min will add 1440 gallons to the pool per day. That should handle evaporation for most pools. Here's an example with many different flow rates available.

I have a PoolMizer, which has innards almost exactly like a toilet tank level valve. It passes maybe 2-3 gal/minute. So the restrictor is not a wild idea.
 
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