Has anyone silenced their plumbing? I mean the actual pipes.

[HippieSmell]

I have a piece of pvc directly after the output of my pump that is shaped like an upside-down peace sign that has one output going to an OM Squirt and the other two going to spray bars. The only problem is that if I have the spraybars open even a little bit, I get a terrible racket coming from that piece of pvc (I think from cavitating). Is there anything I can do to quiet it down?

[pvtschultz]

I doubt that it is cavitation, especially if if only happens when you open that side of the plumbing. What happens if you open that side all the way and closing the other side? I am thinking that you are probably getting some oscillitory flow around the valve or the 'Y' pipe that is causing your problems. This happens with rapidly changing water pressures and kind of sounds like a machine gun.

The other type of sound would be the acceleration of the water past the valve if it is operating at less than 1/4 or so as the result of the head in the pipe and then the valve is like a throttling plate that decrease the pressure but increasing the flow speed which will cause some noise. I doubt that whatever type of flow you have is even remotely harmful for your pump or other components though.

[HippieSmell]

Originally posted by pvtschultz
I doubt that it is cavitation, especially if if only happens when you open that side of the plumbing. What happens if you open that side all the way and closing the other side? I am thinking that you are probably getting some oscillitory flow around the valve or the 'Y' pipe that is causing your problems. This happens with rapidly changing water pressures and kind of sounds like a machine gun.

The other type of sound would be the acceleration of the water past the valve if it is operating at less than 1/4 or so as the result of the head in the pipe and then the valve is like a throttling plate that decrease the pressure but increasing the flow speed which will cause some noise. I doubt that whatever type of flow you have is even remotely harmful for your pump or other components though.

I know exactly what you're talking about and it's not that, it sounds like there's sand rattling around in the pipe. It's not a Y pipe either, it has one inlet and three outlets. But regardless of why it's happening, has anyone put something around their pipes to quiet it down or anything? I would like to get that extra 150 gph out of my pump if possible but the noise drives my girlfriend and myself nuts.

[SaltNutz]

Originally posted by HippieSmell
I have a piece of pvc directly after the output of my pump that is shaped like an upside-down peace sign that has one output going to an OM Squirt and the other two going to spray bars. The only problem is that if I have the spraybars open even a little bit, I get a terrible racket coming from that piece of pvc (I think from cavitating). Is there anything I can do to quiet it down?

It could be cavitation. What is the size of the input to your pump? What maybe happening is that you are restricting the output of your pump when you have the spray bars shut off and when you open them you provide for more out put than input to your pump.

If you cannot fix that, try some plumbers insolution. It's gray or black in about 4 ft lenghts and can be found at Home Depot. It's what the plumbers use to insolute the hot water pipes. It's easy to cut with a craftsman knife and then just use some duct tape to keep it in place. It should help a bit but won't get rid of the "rattle" all together. You're still going to have vibration and you're still going to hear it.

[HippieSmell]

Originally posted by SaltNutz
It could be cavitation. What is the size of the input to your pump? What maybe happening is that you are restricting the output of your pump when you have the spray bars shut off and when you open them you provide for more out put than input to your pump.

If you cannot fix that, try some plumbers insolution. It's gray or black in about 4 ft lenghts and can be found at Home Depot. It's what the plumbers use to insolute the hot water pipes. It's easy to cut with a craftsman knife and then just use some duct tape to keep it in place. It should help a bit but won't get rid of the "rattle" all together. You're still going to have vibration and you're still going to hear it.

The pump itself is 1" in and out, but I have 1.5" hooked up to it. The "peace sign" piece is also 1.5", but then all three outlets (the OM squirt and the two spraybars) are eventually reduced to 3/4". The intake is an "over-the-back" style.