Low water pressure in your house? Find out whether it is one fixture, the regulator, a hidden leak or corroded pipe - and what each fix costs.
Low water pressure is a symptom, not a diagnosis. The useful first question is not "how do I fix it" but "how much of the house is affected?" The answer sends you down completely different paths, and it takes about a minute to work out.
Walk the house. Run the kitchen tap, both sides of a bathroom sink, the shower and an outside hose bib. Note which are weak.
Good news - this is nearly always cheap. In order of likelihood:
Our faucet, shower & fixture repair handles all of these, but try the aerator yourself first.
If cold is fine and hot is weak everywhere, look at the water heater. Sediment build-up in the bottom of the tank restricts flow, and a failing dip tube or a partly closed shut-off on the heater will do the same thing. This is a water heater repair & replacement call.
Now it gets more interesting, and more expensive if you ignore it.
Most Arizona homes on municipal supply have a pressure reducing valve where the line enters the property. They typically last ten to fifteen years and they fail gradually. Symptom: pressure that has declined steadily over a year or two rather than dropping overnight. This is a straightforward replacement.
Worth checking, especially if anyone has worked on the plumbing recently. Gate valves also fail internally - the handle turns fully but the gate has dropped inside.
Water escaping before it reaches your fixtures reduces what arrives at them. Test it: turn off every fixture in the house and watch the water meter. If the dial keeps moving, water is going somewhere it should not. Combine that with a bill that jumped and you have a strong case for leak detection & water leak repair.
If the pressure loss is on the hot side and you have a warm patch on the floor, treat it as a slab leak detection & repair until proven otherwise.
Galvanised steel pipe corrodes inward. Over decades the internal diameter closes up until a three-quarter-inch pipe is passing what a quarter-inch should. Hard water accelerates it. Symptoms: gradually declining pressure over many years, discoloured water at start-up, and pinhole leaks appearing one after another. The fix is repiping & water line repair, and once you are at this stage patching individual sections tends to be money spent twice.
Occasionally it is not you. If neighbours report the same thing, or if it began the day work started on the street, call the utility before you call us.
A number worth knowing: normal residential static pressure is roughly 45 to 80 psi. A $10 gauge that screws onto a hose bib will tell you where you sit in about thirty seconds, and it turns "the shower feels weak" into an actual measurement.
If a regulator is dialled up to compensate for a restriction elsewhere, you have not solved anything - you have just put the whole system under strain. High pressure shortens the life of water heaters, washing machine hoses and every joint in the house. Find the restriction instead.
Call and describe what you are seeing. We will tell you whether it is a tonight problem or a Tuesday problem.