In a home finished to La Jolla's standard, you shouldn't notice the plumbing at all, and high pressure is one of the things that changes that. The first sign is usually a sound, a knock in the walls when a faucet closes, a bang when the washer finishes, and in a home where the walls are part of the investment, that noise is worth looking into. It usually means the pressure is running above the healthy range, and everything downstream is taking the strain.
The expensive part is what that strain wears out. Joints and fittings get stressed each time a valve closes, the faucets and fixtures you chose carefully wear ahead of schedule, supply lines behind finished surfaces take the strain, and the water heater wears out early. Here, the PRV is the one device that manages it, holding the street's pressure to the range everything downstream was built for. The question is whether it's working, failed, or was never installed, and you can't tell which without measuring.
It starts with a gauge reading. A licensed contractor gauges the system, checks the regulator, and explains in plain English what's arriving from the street, what's managing it, and what the options are, with the reasons for each. Homes without a regulator get the straight conversation about what one protects. If the rest of the house was built with care, the pressure is worth checking too.
