Low Water Pressure Safety Valve

While fooling around with plastic tubing and compresson fittings around the house, I realized that some modern methods of connecting pipes are pretty fragile. It scares me to death to think of one of these tubes blowing out of its socket and nobody being home.

I have come to the conclusion that it is probably most stressful at exactly the worst possible time: when nobody is home or everyone is asleep. With the exception of maybe the dishwasher or something, nothing is using water. Every fitting in the house is under serious pressure. This is unnecessary.

I propose a pressure-sensitive valve right where the water line comes into the house. Normally, the valve makes water pressure extremely low, say 2 or 3 psi. When someone opens a faucet or an appliance kicks on, the flowing water throws back a spring-loaded lever and the valve opens fully. When the water is turned off, the valve closes again. There is still the problem that if something started leaking significantly enough to throw the valve, the leak would still be under pressure, but there would be less chance of things leaking when they're not under so much stress. If one is really worried about a leak like that starting small, they could also go with the electronic system.

The valves would have to be adjustible to accomodate larger homes or tall buildings.