Water Works

So, the inspector made sure that we noticed our water problem. It was not a large problem, but one that seemed inconvenient. In the main, upstairs bath, if you flush the toilet and moved to wash your hands, the facet's pressure dipped to practically nothing.

Hmm... That's not good. Especially if you want to take a shower, and you have several drips to wash yourself under. Although Hilary and I remained optimistic, we were unsure how we would solve the problem when we came to it.

April 9th, we close on the house.

Shortly thereafter, I decide to put in a lawn. (it's mostly leaves, pea rock, and dead plants) As you must with all lawns, I tried to watering it. Thus, I needed to turn on the water to the hose. This is a relatively simple task. There is a ball valve that needs to be turned. As soon as I find and turn the valve, I notice the water meter shooting up like crazy.

I run outside, to find a jet of water shooting out of the spigot. Someone had forgot to drain the spigot for over the winter time. A bad thing to forget, because the spigot had burst near the valve outside the house.

My father had the tools and parts to repair it, but from a strong jet shooting out of the pipe came a weak drip from the end of the hose. We were still having pressure issues!!!

We determined Winifred has complete copper tubing. This is a very good thing. Lead pipes work well, but there is the possibility of lead contamination. Galvanized pipes work in the beginning, but quickly deteriorate and fail, causing large amounts of water damage. So, copper pipes were the hallmark for good plumbing, until recently when plastic pipes work even better.

When today came, we decided to find out what was wrong. We knew the spigot for the hose was the first stop in the plumbing, so a blockage or pressure problem had to come before that. After thinking it was possibly a bad water meter, we found a gate valve that had been partially closed.

Hmm... We open the gate valve completely, and viola! We have constant, strong pressure everywhere! Why had they lowered the pressure to their piping system?

Turns out it was simple toilet flushing mechanisms that made them lower their pressure and making taking a shower a huge pain. The lower bathroom's toliet continually runs when it has full pressure. A $4.99 toliet repair kit would fix that problem in an instant...

However, the upstairs bathroom's toliet is another matter. Since it is loose at the moment, it leaks when it has full pressure and is flushed. Another problem, yes, but easily solved.

So, our inspector was right that it may be a huge problem. May being the keyword. We found that we had excellent plumbing all along. It was other circumstances that kept us fretting about what we were going to do about that pressure.