OT: Cleaning Water line in house

[Im Lon 2]

I was at a friends house the other night and they were complaining about the water pressure at there house. The water comes out of there kitchen faucet so slow it took like 30-45 sec to fill a Ice cube try (cold or hot water). I told him to call the water company and ask what could cause this, and they said it was caused by the Water Heater being old and having a build of of hardness. He said the water lines in the house need to be flush to break up the hardness.

How in the world can you clean the inside of your water lines?

His house is on a slab so all water lines run through the concrete floor. so replacing the pipes are not an option.

The bathroom water is fine, could it just be the Faucet in the kitchen? I do know he just replaced it not quite a year ago.

 

[stlouisguy]

Has he unscrewed the tip of the faucet to see if sediment has blocked it up? That would be my guess if the other faucets are working well.

Sometimes that screen gets clogged up with crap and just needs to be unscrewed and cleaned

 

[Im Lon 2]

Yeah we did that it was fine. It even runs slow with the tip of the faucet off.

 

[stlouisguy]

Is the shut off turned all the way up? Maybe something is caught on it, have them turn the shut off valve to the sink closed then open again, could help.

If you need to blow out your pipes you will need a professional so you dont blow your pipes out

 

[capncapo]

Were they trying to fill the ice cube tray with hot water? If not then there is no way that that could be the problem because the cold water doesn't go through the water heater. Is the pressure on the cold water tap any better?

EDIT: Just re-read your post Loinnie. It is NOT the hot water heater causing the problem.

 

[Im Lon 2]

Yeah we checked the Valve turned it Off/On a couple times. We took the whole neck off the faucet with no luck... I think I'm going to have him replace the faucet or at least take it off. Some times there are governors where the faucet hooks to the lines to slow the pressure down, because they only want you to be able to push so much water through the faucet ( I think a Government law ) Maybe that is being blocked as well.

I have thought about turning the water off going to the house. Open the Garden hose faucet out side and hooking up my air compressor to the lines blowing it out and see if that would work.

 

[Im Lon 2]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8935444#post8935444 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by capncapo
Were they trying to fill the ice cube tray with hot water? If not then there is no way that that could be the problem because the cold water doesn't go through the water heater. Is the pressure on the cold water tap any better?

That is what I said and the guy explained that the hot water heater is so old it is starting to release harden composites from inside the water heater, and that is more than likely clogging the faucets..

 

[capncapo]

How does the water run for the bath tub or the washing machine? If it seems to be OK there then it sounds like a faucet problem.

If they're not complaining about it taking an hour to take a shower or wash a load of laundry then I don't think it's the lines.

 

[Im Lon 2]

Good Point! Everything fine but the Kitchen faucet. So we will have to work on that.

 

[DrBDC]

An easy way to see if it's the faucet w/o buying one to see if it fixes it would be to turnoff the valve, unhook the water feed below and have it pour into a bucket. If it's flowing fast there, then it's the faucet. A little more difficult if the feed line is a copper pipe vs. a hose. Maybe change them to hoses while you're at it since it will be a lot easier to work with a new faucet if you go that route anyway.

 

[scbadiver]

Lonnie, I had the same thing at my sisters lake house. There was a flow restricter in the faucet that got gunked up and then cocked in the housing and actually at times shut the flow off completely but mostly just very slow flow. Disassemble and clean the whole faucet. You can even remove the flow restricter completely. it wont hurt anything (except the water bill).