Not every project goes as well as planned. We would be happy to spend a few minutes answering your questions.
Current Articles | RSS Feed
I got a call from a customer that she were having a problem with her plumbing: low water pressure. This is a common description from homeowners that is used generically for many different water problems. In this case, the homeowner was complaining about whenever she showered, if someone turned on a faucet, the water would dramatically decrease in the shower to the point that she couldn't shower until that faucet was turned off. We see this happen with pressure balancing anti-scald shower valves to avoid someone getting scalded if, for example, someone flushes the toilet. This type of valve intentionally lowers the hot water pressure to keep the temperature constant when there is a sudden draw of cold water. That wasn't the case with this though. The problem was uniform throughout the house, and not just isolated to that particular shower.
People often misuse the term low water pressure. In this case, the water pressure was fine. We put a water pressure gauge on the hose bib and the incoming pressure was nearly 75 psi. This is considered very strong water pressure. The problem here was the water volume. You can have strong water pressure but poor water volume. The result is a weak shower.
The first thing to check is the main water valves. In this case we went to the street and the water meter was turned on only about halfway, effectively cutting the water volume in half. Simply turning the valve all the way to the open position solved this customer's shower issue.
Had this not solved her volume problem, we would have done more investigating starting with the shut-off valve in the garage. It happened to be a gate valve which has a reputation for causing problems, such as the gate breaking off and partially or completely blocking the flow of water.
Allowed tags: <a> link, <b> bold, <i> italics