Banging pipes are a common complaint in El Cajon. East County's older homes have been taking full street pressure for decades, many with regulators that gave out years ago and plenty that never had one, and the plumbing has been wearing from it all along. The knock in the walls is the part you can hear. Most of the damage from high pressure is quiet, and it costs more.
Excess pressure works on everything downstream, every joint, every fitting, every faucet, every supply line, and hardest of all on the water heater, which takes the strain day after day and wears out early because of it. When an El Cajon water heater fails ahead of schedule, high pressure is often part of the reason, and a new heater installed on the same unregulated pressure starts wearing the same way. The PRV handles it at the source, one device keeping the whole system in the healthy range so the parts aren't failing one at a time.
What your house needs depends on what's actually there, a working regulator, a failed one, or none at all, and you can't tell the three apart without a licensed contractor reading a gauge. On the visit, the contractor measures the pressure, explains what the number means, and walks you through the options in plain English, including what adding a regulator protects if the house never had one. If your plumbing has been on full street pressure for decades, a call gets the number read.
