Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

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Totally Scrambled
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Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Totally Scrambled »

The water comes into the house by the kitchen sink where the stopcock is. It then branches one way to feed the cold water tap at the kitchen sink, a second way to the cold bathroom tap and toilet cistern with a third to the combi boiler to provide hot water.
The pressure to both the hot and cold tap at the kitchen sink is very low while the cold water pressure to the bathroom cold tap and toilet cistern and to the bathroom hot tap are normal.
Any idea why this should be or what I can do to remedy the low pressure in the kitchen.
Thanks for any thoughts.
Dom
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Annie
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Annie »

Oh frilly knickers, I have just waved goodbye to the plumber doing our bathroom out - talk about bad timing, sorry Dom
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saint-spoon
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by saint-spoon »

I would suggest that you have two problems there, one causing low pressure to the kitchen cold and one causing low pressure to the kitchen hot. Are there any ball valves in the system? The type thst you use a screw driver to turn on and off.
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Totally Scrambled »

Yes there is one where the tap tails join the main pipes. I have loosened and tightened them both several times but there was no change.
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by vegalot »

Could it be a scale build up? are your bathroom pipes newer than the kitchen ones ?
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Totally Scrambled
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Totally Scrambled »

All the pipes are the same age as they were all replaced when the kitchen was extended but I suppose the kitchen taps get used the most overall.
Mind you both kitchen taps started loosing pressure at the same time >coc<
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saint-spoon
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by saint-spoon »

Have you a mixer tap or seperate taps?
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Totally Scrambled »

It's a mixer tap.
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silverback
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by silverback »

Hi Dom, is this a new install or has it always been like this?.
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HappyBob
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by HappyBob »

Unusual for both the hot and cold losing pressure at the same time when the rest of the house is ok. Dom you stated that you had the kitchen extended I wonder if your kitchen sink was moved and both the hot and cold pipework were extended that feed the kitchen taps.

Have the kitch taps always had low pressure, slowly progressed to low pressure or one day the low pressure was there?

Is that is it posible that both the pipes have been damaged ie dented somewhere were you cant see them? restricting flow to both the taps.

Is the pipe diameters adequate? (only if pressures were low immediately after possible plumbing work)
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HappyBob
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by HappyBob »

Totally Scrambled wrote:It's a mixer tap.
Dom


Dom are the mixer tails 10mm?
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Totally Scrambled
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Totally Scrambled »

HappyBob wrote:Unusual for both the hot and cold losing pressure at the same time when the rest of the house is ok. Dom you stated that you had the kitchen extended I wonder if your kitchen sink was moved and both the hot and cold pipework were extended that feed the kitchen taps.

The pipework was all new from where it came into the house under the sink and then this was connected to the existing pipework.
HappyBob wrote:Have the kitch taps always had low pressure, slowly progressed to low pressure or one day the low pressure was there?

They used to have the same pressure as the bathroom and toilet cistern. As far as we can figure the pressure dropped fairly suddenly rather than slowly reducing but we can't really pinpoint exactly when or how quickly it happened.
HappyBob wrote:Is that is it posible that both the pipes have been damaged ie dented somewhere were you cant see them? restricting flow to both the taps.

I can clearly see the whole pipe run from the stopcock to the cold as it's very short. The hot I can't see the whole run fron the stop to the boiler and back again but if it was leaking anywhere we would know it.
HappyBob wrote:Is the pipe diameters adequate? (only if pressures were low immediately after possible plumbing work)

The copper pipes are standard 15mm but gave normal flow before.
HappyBob wrote:
Dom are the mixer tails 10mm?

No they're a lot longer than that somewhere around a foot long :-D
Seriously though they are about the same external diameter as the copper feed pipe but I have't a clue how big the internal diameter is.
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saint-spoon
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by saint-spoon »

From an engineering point of view you have two separate systems with only one commonality, that is why I asked if you had a mixer tap. Your tap is the problem IMO.
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Totally Scrambled »

I thought the only thing that could go wrong with a tap was the washers which would make it leak.
Do you think that the tap pipe has clogged up? Would soaking it in descaler help or is it time for a new tap?
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Re: Plumbing Problem. Anyone Got Any Ideas

Post by Totally Scrambled »

Right Spoony, on the strength of what you said I looked at the tap and where the pipe bit the water comes out of joins the body of the tap is a push fit with a locking bolt thingy. I loosed that and tried to pull the pipe bit out to see if it might be blocked. Couldn't shift it though so resecured the bolt with the plan to try again in the morning.
A few minutes later I decided to have a drink of water and low and behold the pressure from both is back to normal.
All Hail to Spoony the psychic plumber )b(
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