Poor water pressure in kitchen

[milkmansdaughter]

Hi all,
We recently started getting poor water pressure out of our kitchen faucets. The shower in the bathroom works fine but gets a LOT of sediment and I have to constantly clean out the shower head. And lately, the hot water heater has been shutting off. I'm thinking our water heater needs to be drained. Im hoping it does not need to be replaced. Any suggestions of what to look for or how to restore the pressure in the kitchen (there is no screen at the end of the faucet, so if it is sediment blocking the pipe, it's further back in the pipe.) We checked, and saw no evidence of a leaky pipe under the house. Thanks in advance!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Check the shut off valves leading to the kitchen faucets. My son had this issue with his kitchen. New house, new faucet with integrated mixing valve in faucet. Good pressure everywhere else. He was getting ready to replace this faucet when they discovered that the shut off valve was only open part way.

 

[CrealCritter]

If your going to drain the hot water heater and its electric. First shut off the breaker to kill the electric, then shut off the cold water (in) to the hot water heater, hook up a garden hose to the drain and run to a low spot out doors. Slowly open the pressure release valve (it usually has a length of PVC pipe that runs down the side of the hot water heater, you usually get a little less than 5 gallons of hot water out of the pressure release valve so plan to catch it in a bucket, then open the drain valve all the way and drain out all the water.

To fill the hot water heater again just do the above in reverse order. But wait to turn the electrical back on until the hot water heater is fully full of water. If not, you'll blow the heater coils out of the hot water heater and they can be a real pain to replace. It helps to open up all the hot water faucets while filling the water heater back up because you'll get a lot of air in the pipes. once the faucets stop burping air turn them off and wait a several minutes to turn the electrical back on to the hot water heater just to be safe.

I don't like plumbing at all and my wife hates it when something goes wrong with plumbing in the house. Because I shout out lots of choice sailor words. I always get it fixed, I'm just not pleasant to be around.

There's three things you need to know if your a plumber.
Hot goes on the left
**** flows down hill
And you get paid on Friday's

 

[Marianne]

My guess is that you're getting a lot of hard water sediment build up in the faucet, or even the plumbing to it.

We have really hard water - - well to filter to water softener to faucet...and STILL get build up. When we first moved out here, I was stunned at how much mineral deposits were in the critter water pans.

Oops, forgot to add that it might be the same problem with your water heater. There was one dumped at the back of our property that had two inches of sediment build up.

 

[Beekissed]

MMD, I'd drain and flush your HWT and then take your faucet apart...usually if you have sediment build up it's in the inner workings of your faucet, particularly if you have removed the screens already. Somewhere in the area where the water comes up into the faucet from your pipes and diverts into the faucet could lie the problem. May even need to replace the whole faucet to fix that or just clean out that valve.

If you have build up there, I'd also check any screens on your washing machine...or at least, check how the water flows in there also. If low flow, I'd clean all screens in hoses there also.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I had to soak the head for the faucet in our bathroom because the hard water deposits had almost completely clogged the holes. But that made the water spray out in every direction, not low water pressure.

I remember helping my Dad clean out our hot water heater once. He turned it off and drained it, then I spent about an hour with a piece of metal scraping the deposits out through the drain hole near the bottom. He had to replace the bottom heater element about 6 months later.

Good luck finding the cause of your low pressure.

 

[wyoDreamer]

The poor water pressure in the kitchen - is it both hot & cold water or just the hot?
If just the hot it may be a hot water tank issue.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

Both hot and cold, and we have city water, not a well.

 

[tortoise]

Check the shut off valves leading to the kitchen faucets. My son had this issue with his kitchen. New house, new faucet with integrated mixing valve in faucet. Good pressure everywhere else. He was getting ready to replace this faucet when they discovered that the shut off valve was only open part way.

I like the sound of this - easy free solution! I do not enjoy plumbing problems, they can be so.... complicated.

 

[wyoDreamer]

If this is a new occurrence, then it probably is not the valves, but check to make sure.
Are there any other fixtures connected to the waterlines between the bathroom and kitchen - ie. laundry room, mud room?

With it being the Hot and the Cold, it sounds like a problem with your faucet to me. Until the water gets to the faucet, it is 2 completely separate systems - so for both to be low pressure flow it would seem to be the junction of the 2 (ie. the faucet) that causing the problem.