err.. I have a sinking feeling...

[sarahw97]

that I have a supply line problem. I swear this house has a hex on it, one step forward two steps back....

anyway here is the problem; bought this house recently. It's old. It's crappy. I'm working on it... I redid one bathroom so far (that's another story, but it's basically done and working fine). The water pressure was surprisingly decent at first, fine for my use.

Now.. over the past week or so, the water pressure has gotten really bad. When I turn on the faucet, the pressure is fine for the first maybe 8 seconds, then it fades to a pathetic trickle. Hot or Cold is the same. Shower and Sink the same. If I flush the toilet, I can't take a shower for about 10 minutes.

I can't say what the rest of the house is like, as it's all ripped apart in demo mode, and I don't currently have any appliances running (yeah it's like camping around here, but more expensive). There is an outside faucet that also has noticeably less pressure than it once did.

I have mains water; the meter in the basement reads at about 4.5 (whatever that means?)

My furnace is an antique but it still works and heats the water fine.. though I'm looking to replace it.

any ideas what the problem might be? I have a sick feeling that something has happened to the supply line...

thanks.

 

[Mike Swearingen]

I have a sinking feeling that this old house has old obsolete galvanized supply lines which are notorious for eventually clogging up with scale over time.
The only solution to galvanized in this stage is replacement.
PEX is great for the job.
Good Luck!
Mike

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Cass]

I would call a competent plumber to come and check the pressure, shut the water off on the street, disconnect the meter, turn the water back on and check the flow between the street and house.

You can start from there, if the house does have galvanized water line coming from the street, regardless of what the plumber finds, then it is at or very close to the end of its service life and may need to be replaced as Mike Swearingen pointed out.

 

[hj]

pressure

Without being there to see what you have all we can do is guess at possibilities, which is really a lesson in futility. You could have a bad pressure reducing valve, a plugged softener, if you have either of these items, a broken shutoff valve, or a plugged galvanized pipe. Each of these has a different cure so you have to know what the problem is before you can even start to fix it.

 

[sarahw97]

thanks

OK thanks.. I'll call the plumber. sigh.

 

[Herk]

I have a sneaking feeling that there's a gate valve broken internally or turned almost all the way off. When working on pipes, people often open the valve just a little to give it time to see if there are leaks and then they forget to open it the rest of the way. Or . . . the stem in cheap gate valves shears off and the gate remains in the valve, unmovable. In the second case, you need a new valve.

 

[sarahw97]

update

Thought I'd post a follow up to this.. sort of good news..

Turns out that it was the main gate valve where the main water comes into the house.. it was broken almost all the way closed. So.. didn't take long to fix once that was pinpointed as the problem. A little messing around to shut off the main out in the street, but it was all resolved in about an hour. And now I have a main valve that actually works.

Could have been a LOT worse! phew.

now, onto the rest of the problems with my dumpy house..

 

[Redwood]

Sarah,
Glad to hear that you got off easiliy this time!
Of all the things it could have been this was probably the cheapest to have to repair!

I had a feeling that was the problem so did a few of the others!
I hope the plumber installed a 1/4 turn ball valve in its place.

 

[sarahw97]

yep

Thanks, yes he did install the ball valve.

 

[Redwood]

Good deal!

 

[SteveW]

That is not just "sort of good news," it is really good news!

Whatever you paid to have the valve replaced is a fraction of the thousands of dollars you would have had to pay for repiping the house or putting in a new supply line from the street to the house.

Not to mention that it is really nice to be able to turn off the water to the house with a working shut-off valve...