I had a bizarre outcome in my house plumbing after replacing a hot water heater today. That is: on two faucets, at the kitchen sink, no water comes out when I turn on the faucets. Every other water outlet around the house works fine, including hot at bathroom and garage. Now, this is an older house [built 1954, I think] and it has been added-onto, which included some plumbing re-routing and additions. My brain is telling me this must be some sort of hydraulic locking problem, though I don't fathom how -- we have very high water pressure here. When I first opened the inlet valve to fill the new heater, I opened the kitchen sink hot tap to let the 38 gallons of air out, thinking I was being smart -- and at first there was a lot of wheezing so I figured it was working, planning to run 100 gals or so of water into the sink to clean the heater tank. But when I came back later to turn off the faucet, no water was running, and none had been. I don't =think= there's any possibility of obstruction in both of those very separate lines [hot and cold both at the sink]. I'm 99% sure there are no check valves anywhere in the house. How do I clear this? I don't have a lot of experience with plumbing. FWIW, I have a way to reverse-flush the cold circuit in the house, if anybody thinks that would be useful. With a little effort I could arrange to reverse-feed the sink faucets if that would help -- only thing I can think of other than draining the new heater and starting over. TIA for any suggestions.
Hi ... that's odd, I edited that post earlier to say I'd found the problem. It was nothing more than the aerator screen in the faucet being plugged with rust and clinkers. The light came on as I was starting to disassemble it -- the common element in the problem was that aerator. I suppose that having the pipe dry for 12 hours or so was enough to dislodge some of the junk clinging to the inside of all the steel pipes in the hot circuit. I've had that faucet in use for some years now, and have cleaned the aerator assembly a few times, but never previously has it plugged completely solid. Thanks for the reply.
OK, here's another plumbing problem, for Roto-2Seater. When I turn the hot water on at the kitchen sink, the flow is fine,...until the hot water starts coming out. As the water gets warmer, the flow slows down and the pipes under the sink start to vibrate. Could the 'hot' valve be reacting to the hot water? Swelling or something?
getting technical though, vibrating or banging pipes could be a 'bumper' problem. they put vertical stand-offs in the system to trap an air pocket, the air pocket is compressable where water isn't. whenever you open or close a faucet or flush the air pocket bumpers do their job by compressing and decompressing to buffer the pressure difference in the system. >2seater ++++++++++++ Yah, that's the difference between an engineered system vs one just thrown together with the minimum amount of parts [like mine]. As for the pipe vibrating -- I think the only real solution to that in a house that's already built is to anchor the pipe to wood with a u-clamp. [dunno what their real name is, but hardware stores have them, used to anchor pipes or conduits to a wall.] It's possible there's trapped air in the system -- might be useful to reverse-flush it. I have to do that to my house any time I open the plumbing some way, probably because my water pipes run above the ceiling. I bought an extra 50' garden hose, replaced the male connector with a female, gives you a faucet-to-faucet connector.
I'm thinking it's the spray nozzel diverter. When you open the spray up, the vib goes away and there is good flow. You shut her down and the flow out the faucet slows and the vibrations start anew. Sound logical?
The thing that gets me is that it flows nice,.... until the hot water makes its way to the faucet. Then it slows to a trickle and starts making noise. I'm about to toss the whole set up out the window and head to Lowes.
Sean, I had that problem with Moen faucets. Replaced them with Deltas and the problem is gone. The Deltas do have one drawback, the brass ball in them needs replaced with the stainless steel version fairly quick if you have hard water.
Sean, your undersink pipe vibrations are the result of the resonance through the system as the water passes the swelled o-ring at the hot water discharge of the sink. The activation of the sprayer bypasses the faucet outlet alleviating the flow past the failing gasket thus ending your rattling pipe problem. If you're inclined (and the smart money goes on "no" in this case I'd bet), you can take the hot water spigot apart and fix it. If it's one of those single arm units, just replace it. They can be repaired but they're cheap. Not hard, not expensive. If you require a plumber for every little issue, then pump some cash into the local economy and get 'r done. Don't let the plumber tell you you need anything other than a new faucet. BB in the future when you turn off the water, remove the extra water from the system by opening the lowest physical faucet so gravity can do it's job. And clean your screens, for cripe's sake. Your family drinks from those things. Gah.
And clean your screens, for cripe's sake. Your family drinks from those things. Gah. >ff +++++++++++++++ Well -- my house was built in 1954, all galvanized steel pipe. I try to look away rather than contemplate the rust inside them. You can't taste it, and the water still flows, and if it was going to kill me I'd already be dead long ago. Anyway, that water was flowing through the dirt not that long before it got to my house. Fish and birds and who knows what else pooping in it. It's good for you, adds essential vitamins and minerals. Right thing would be to replace it all with copper or plastic, but that would require major wall destruction to get access to it all. Hopefully I can push that job off onto the next owners. Nobody ever looks inside a water pipe.
