When it comes to plumbing, nothing is worse than having leaks. Leaks cause inefficiencies in the line, loss of pressure, and the stopping of public and commercial systems. Water leaks can also cause extensive damage as water just has a way of ruining everything in its wake when a line breaks.
Once a water line is repaired, how do you test the line aside from just turning the water back on? Let’s go over some of the methods used to test water lines.
One of the most popular ways to test lines once they have been repaired is through the use of a hydrostatic test pump. These pumps can come in many different sizes and are used to test commercial as well as residential water lines.
These pumps rely on inlet and outlet hoses to move water from the water supply source to the system that’s being tested. By moving water into a set of lines at high pressure, you can make sure that the lines were repaired or assembled correctly, as well as checking to make sure that corrosion or weakness hasn’t developed in the lines. The testing of this system typically occurs at the lowest access point in the system and is a common way to test fire protection sprinkler systems.
Another way to test water lines is by using pressurized air. The only downside to this is that because you aren’t using water to test the lines, it can be harder to pinpoint where the leaks are occurring. While definitely not as effective as hydrostatic testing, this method can still be better than just turning the water on and hoping your repairs or assembly were done correctly.
The third and least safe way to test your water lines is to turn the water back up, thus increasing water pressure. The riskiest part about testing a line this way is that if leaking still exists, you may undo whatever repairs you did very quickly, as well as increase your potential to experience water damage to other property.
As you can see, when it comes to testing water lines, a hydrostatic test pump is hard to beat. This method can help you test smaller lines without having to test all of your water lines at once. Since it is focused on a particular line, it makes it faster to test and pinpoint where errors or issues still exist that need to be repaired or patched.