Do we have a plumber in the house

[jnguyen4007]

We have a dual his/her sink in the master bedroom. I have no problem with water flow on my sink, but my wife's sink is another story. We noticed that her water output is much slower than mine. We noticed this when we first moved into our house. We mentioned it to our builder and they blamed it on the county water saying that their water pressure was low. Over time, the water pressure that comes out of my wife's faucet got lower and lower. I even unscrewed the faucet and cleaned it and it still not dispensing water like it should. Anyone who is a plumber can think of another reason why this is or if there is anything I can do about it? Would replacing the entire faucet system help?

[YBeNormal]

There might be a crimp in the copper pipe on her side. The crimp might be inside the wall where you cannot see it. That or the plumber screw up when sweating he pipe and got a bunch of solder inside the pipe, blocking the flow.

[jnguyen4007]

There might be a crimp in the copper pipe on her side. The crimp might be inside the wall where you cannot see it. That or the plumber screw up when sweating he pipe and got a bunch of solder inside the pipe, blocking the flow.

 

 

HUH????

 

Can we put it in Plumbing for Dummies term?

 

Is that something easy for me to fix or do I have to suck it up and live with it?

[Highland Reefer]

Could be something wrong with her faucet along with what Ybe stated. I would turn off the water to her faucet at the cut-off valves & then disconnect the water supplies at the faucet ends. Then place the water supplies in a bucket & turn them back on at the cut-off valves. If you have a strong water flow, then you know it is in the faucet. If you do not have a strong water flow, then the problem is in the water lines leading up to the cut-off valves &/or possibly the cut-off valve itself. With what I have seen out there, my money would be on a faulty faucet, followed by a faulty cut-off valve. I have had to replace far to many faulty brand new faucets. The manufacturers are using to many cheap plastic parts now, especially in the cheaper faucets which the builders tend to use.

Edited June 21, 2008 by Highland Reefer

[quazi]

" I even unscrewed the faucet and cleaned it and it still not dispensing water like it should. "

 

I am not sure what this means. Did you clean or even remove the aerator? Did you replace the cartdidges?

 

Is the cut-off valve open (yes, just like the old, is the computer plugged in? question) Did you replace the cut-off valve like HR suggested?

 

HR's post is right on. If the water from (or before) the cut-off is OK, then it is the faucet. But, the parts are usually the problem, not the faucet itself. "The whole is the sum of its parts!"

[davelin315]

When he said what he said, he meant that your pipe could be bent, or when they soldered the pipe together they put too much welding compound in it and it melted and formed a clump on the inside of the pipe. Basically, it's like a snail crawled into your drainpipe and the water can't get through.

 

The easiest way to test this out is to see if your hot and cold water supplies are the same. If you have the same amount of hot and cold water when you remove the water savers from your faucet, then it's probably the sink. Unless you have well water, you should not notice that much of a difference in flow from this sink to yours because the pressure originates at the pumping station while with well water it originates in your well pump. If you do find that there's a difference, then you can check it out by looking under your sink at the two faucets under there. You should have a hot water and a cold water supply, if you turn them off (these are the cut-offs) and then unscrew the hose from there to the faucet, then you can determine what the water flow is from there by running them independently of your faucet. Be forewarned, though, there could be a whole lot of water pressure coming out of there and you could end up with a lot of water flowing through! Also, sometimes those fail (have had it happen once) so know where your whole house cut-off is or have a hose prepared to stick that in to that can gravity feed into a shower drain or some other method for getting it out of the house! If you still can't find the problem, then most likely it is in the wall and you'll need a professional to come out and take a look (you can always take a roto-zip or dremel and remove the section of wall behind the sink to take a look if you want, but then you'll need to have the ability to put it back afterwards although you can just stick a panel up to block it since it's probably inside a cabinet).

[GaryL]

here is a link to troubleshooting faucet types

 

wait for it....

 

wait....

 

faucet troubleshooting just click on the picture of the typer of faucet it is and it takes you to a break down of them.

 

HTH

 

sorry about the wait for it thing...just feeling froggy this morning

 

if any of the components from the factory are installed wrong then it will work with low or little flow...

 

my shower in my apartment had a bad cartridge and the hot water side kept getting weaker and weaker until there was no water at all coming out then i had to call the office.

Edited June 21, 2008 by GaryL

[jnguyen4007]

I want to say thank you and thank you again several hundred times to you guys for helping me out on this. As it turns out, the problem with our sink was as simple as turning on the shut off valve all the way and lo and behold, we got water! Why couldn't those home builders told us that when we had our walk through and at the one year inspection when we bought our house? Then again, we're talking about the same builders who connected the hot water line into our downstairs bathroom toilet. For a year, we felt heat rise from the toilet and when we mentioned it to the home builder, they said it was because of the hot water tank in the utility room next to our bathroom.

 

Here's my next question. Is there a shut off valve for the shower as well where it's easily accessible or is it behind the wall that would require us to cut into our wall to see if the water is turned on all the way? I checked our main water valve in the utility room and the cold water is turned on all the way.

 

Thanks again guys.

[Highland Reefer]

If you go to the wall directly behind the shower faucets, you will see an access panel framed out if there is one. If not, you will have to cut the drywall to make one. If you are not having problems, I would not worry about it.

[CHUBAKAH]

Here's my next question. Is there a shut off valve for the shower as well where it's easily accessible or is it behind the wall that would require us to cut into our wall to see if the water is turned on all the way? I checked our main water valve in the utility room and the cold water is turned on all the way.

 

Thanks again guys.

 

Shut off valve = angle stop, and in 28 years I have never seen one on a shower.

 

If your home has good pressure, and the shower seems low, chances are it is at the shower head, and not in the mixing valve. Most everything out today is built with water conservation in mind, and they put restrictors in the head it's self. A lot of times you can simply unscrew the head and at the backside pull out the restrictior, or little plastic piece with needle nose pliers, and this will increase pressure 10 fold.

 

If you do take that approach I also recommend soaking the shower head in some sort of cleaner like "Lime Away" which will remove a lot of the calcium buildup, and clear the needle holes.

 

HF GL

[YBeNormal]

I agree. Some shower heads are built with a solid plastic or metal insert that has a very small hole in it rather than using a rubber plug to restrict flow. If you have one of that type and the insert is not removable, bring it over and we can drill it out.

[quazi]

Some shower heads with hoses have SEVERAL chokes. In the shower-pic shower head that I have, I had to drill one choke to get decent water flow out of it.