Monday, June 16, 2014

I decided today I would find the problem with our plumbing.  Our bathroom faucet was just slightly more than a trickle and the kitchen faucet took more than a minute to fill a gallon jug.

I wanted to find a single something common to both problems that could easily be corrected, but that didn't happen.

I started with some of the obvious things.  I inspected all of the hose fittings and additional hardware I had installed for any corrosion or mineral build up.  I bypassed the external filter and water pressure regulator.  Neither had any impact on faucet water flow.  I opened the panels in the water bay.  I checked for any unknown pressure regulator or filters.  I checked the position of the two winterizing valves.  They were in their proper positions, but I tried switching them anyway to see if they made any difference - they did not.  Next, I completely removed the check valve from the water inlet.  That also had no effect.

Inside, I opened the water heater cabinet and removed the check valve. It was clear.  Finally, I removed the bathroom faucet, resigned to do a complete and through cleaning.  I took it outside and tried to flush it out using a hose.  Mostly, that just got me soaked.  Although it seemed clear, there was very little flow through the faucet passages.  I found a screen buried in the flexible line between the valves and the nozzle.  It was pretty clogged and turned out to be our problem.

I put everything back together and verified the bathroom faucet was again working as it should.

That success made me look more closely at the kitchen faucet.  Sure enough I found another screen I had not noticed before.  It was not very clogged so it didn't make much difference.  I tried the faucet without the aerator and noted quite an improvement in flow.  I decided that I shouldn't just leave the aerator out but I noticed it could be easily modified.  I opened up a few of the holes in the aerator disc and that helped nicely.

Joani was happy with the improvements, so I thought it was a good time to declare victory and celebrate with a glass of wine.  I love that sense of accomplishment you get from a successful conclusion to a full day of hard work (I really like the retired definitions of "full day" and "hard work").

UPDATE: Wednesday I tried to improve the faucet flow further by opening up the remaining aerator disk holes.  Careful timing, however, showed no improvement leading me to believe just cleaning both screens before was all I really needed.