Pressure problem?

We just moved into a two story house, and there are two upstairs bathtubs. One of them has such low pressure that the water just trickles out of the faucet...on the other there's enough pressure to shower but its still lower than our old house. The sinks in the house seem to have fine water pressure but I'm not sure what is causing the low pressure in the tubs. We had a city water guy come over to take a look at the pressure in the house and he said we are at 65 psi and that it may just be that the tubs are on the second floor, but our old house was also a two story and the tubs were on the second floor and they worked just fine. I was wondering what would cause the showers to have such low pressure, if it is even a pressure problem?


Thanks,
Day425

pressure problem

Hi Day425, No advice or help here ,but I maybe am having a similar problem to yours,but single level home here. The house was built in 1957,so it still has the galvanized pipe water main. I wrote in about here under Plumbing "where did the water presurre go" No replys from here on it as of yet... Read it if you'd like. Good luck in getting your water works worked out!

The city gave you the answer. You have plenty of pressure, the problem is flow. Many folks don't understand the difference between pressure and flow. The problem is almost certainly corroded galvanized pipes. Galvanized pipes have a life span of about 40 years, give or take depending on local water quality. What happens is that they are steel and gradually corrode on the inside to the point that often the inside diameter is reduce to the size of a drinking straw. It will not go away. The only cure is to repipe the house with copper or Pex.

It's also quite possible that the tub valves are plugged with bits of rust or sand or whatever else might be in your water.

In addition to the small passageway where the water goes past the cartridges or seats, tubs with showers almost always have a diverter inside the center of the valve where the water is channeled toward the head. This diverter is easy to clog.

Different valves have different parts. Three-handle valves have a manual diverter, while "diverter spouts" require a plastic diverter in the body of the valve or the water will always come out the shower head and the spout together.

Some valves are the same even if they do not have a shower - one port is plugged off but the diverter is still there, though unnecessary.

Thanks for the advice guys. I just have one more question...I took a good look at the pipes last night and saw that they are all copper coming out of the water main. but seemed really small. Would this cause the low flow that you were talking about? Someone suggested that if they used too small of pipe to go upstairs there isn't enough water going up to the shower to give the pressure...if that makes any sense

Day425 said:

I took a good look at the pipes last night and saw that they are all copper coming out of the water main. but seemed really small.

Click to expand...

Could you define "really small" a little more precisely? If you just wrap a piece of paper around the pipe and make a pencil mark where the two ends of the paper overlap, you can measure the circumference very accurately, and from that determine the diameter. Most homes are plumbed with a combination of 3/4" and 1/2" copper. These are "trade", or "nominal" sizes, which actually are 1/8" smaller than the measured diameters (7/8" and 5/8", respectively). Thus you should see pipes with a circumference of either a little under 2 3/8", which is 3/4" pipe, or a little under 2", which is 1/2" pipe.