water pressure regulators

I needed a new gauge for my Watts and was shocked at the price of them today. Watts is the best but be prepared to pay $$$! I think I might be tempted to try the Valterra adjustable for under $60 on Amazon.

I have this one and it works great.

Watts and Zurin both make fine regulators.. nearly identical. They also make ****. as does a number of other companies.

HOW TO TELL THE DIFFERNCE
You know those 3/4" diamater cylinder jobs they sell in RV stores. Male hose fittinn on one end, Female on the other? JUNK
Oh they will limit the pressure but they also restrict the flow.

SUR-FLO (A Watts corp if I'm not mistaken) makes a decent one. In fact if your RV has one built in.. Guess who's Now the construction suggests it can be repuilt when it ages.

Watts and Zurin both make nearly identical devices designed to be used In line win a house or apartment. Thest units have a bell shaped upper housing. the bell's "Mounting bolt" is the pressure adjustment bolt.

They are made of Brass and are fully rebuildable. The Bell is about 3" in diamater at the base.

Test results
Junk models (Also a wore out Watts) Static 50 psi. flowing 10 psi

Brand new Zurin.. Static 50 psi.. FULL FLOW 50 psi

Park pressure varied from 60 PSI to 120 druing those tests.

I have tried several over the years and agree the small inline ones commonly sold to RVers are junk. A step up is the $60 Valterra mentioned above, but I’ve had two of them and found them ridiculously fragile. I now have a Watts that is adjustable and has no gauge but is built like a tank. I got it at the orange home improvement store where it was sold for home use.

I have worn out 2 watts 263A units over the past 10 years of full time use. The brass at the point where the unit actually limits the pressure just eroded over time. You couldn't see it, but it quit limiting pressure. A rebuild kit didn't solve the problem since the main unit was worn not the rebuild kit parts. Two in 10 years? I can live with that and bought another one. Problem solved.

Rob, thanks for the post. That set up looks a lot cleaner/slick than the stuff I got cobbeled together on my watts. :C

Over 70,000 miles of travel using those “junk” fixed regulators and never had a problem. Maybe I’m just lucky.

Dave

bob213 wrote:
I needed a new gauge for my Watts and was shocked at the price of them today. Watts is the best but be prepared to pay $$$! I think I might be tempted to try the Valterra adjustable for under $60 on Amazon.

You can buy a gauge at any hardware store.

Lynnmor wrote:

bob213 wrote:
I needed a new gauge for my Watts and was shocked at the price of them today. Watts is the best but be prepared to pay $$$! I think I might be tempted to try the Valterra adjustable for under $60 on Amazon.

You can buy a gauge at any hardware store.

That's exactly what I did but you may be surprised at the lack of availability at any hardware store. Back mounted are harder to find but can be had online. It was in my search for the gauge that I saw the prices for a new one. A cheap gauge replacement was the answer for me and a lesson to store my regulator right side up so the oil doesn't drain out of it.